COMMENTS ON THE PREVIOUS EDITION ‘I am very impressed with the book’s empirical and theoretical range.’ Mark Bouman, Pr...
898 downloads
8953 Views
12MB Size
Report
This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form
COMMENTS ON THE PREVIOUS EDITION ‘I am very impressed with the book’s empirical and theoretical range.’ Mark Bouman, Professor and Department Chair, Chicago State University ‘An excellent book, monumental in scope, breathtaking in depth…a great achievement.’ Christopher Smith, Professor of Geography and Planning, SUNY at Albany ‘This remains the most definitive text and the best introductory one.’ Kevin Ward, Senior Lecturer in Geography, University of Manchester ‘It has huge depth and breadth of coverage, with which no other text can (or probably wants to) compete.’ Tim Coles, Lecturer in Human Geography, University of Exeter ‘This text is more comprehensive than any text I know in the subject area. It is nearly 700 pages long and is a tour de force.’ Linda Stainer, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Derby Urban Geography: A Global Perspective offers the most contemporary, comprehensive, and insightful presentation on urban geography, a compelling readable, spectacularly exciting, and pleasingly sophisticated investigation of an extensive range of vital urban issues at the local and global scales. It is a must-read for any urban student and scholar the world over. James O.Wheeler, The Merle Prunty Jr. Emiritus Professor of Geography, University of Georgia An impressive overview of the urban process, from the origins of cities to the problems of contemporary urban regions in the developed and developing worlds. L.S.Bourne, Professor of Geography, University of Toronto Michael Pacione’s Urban Geography: A Global Perspective provides a comprehensive global view of urban geography that is chock full of information and lavishly illustrated with maps, photographs, and illustrations. At the same time it is theoretically smart, rich in historical detail, and questioning about urban futures in a global world. It is the ideal text for undergraduate courses in urban geography and urban studies. Professor Neil Smith, City University of New York I heartily endorse Pacione’s new text. He has set himself the daunting task of introducing students to the full breadth and richness of urban geography and rises magnificently to the occasion. Professor A.G.Champion, University of Newcastle
First edition published 2001, Second edition 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon 0X14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “ To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.” © 2005 Michael Pacione All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Pacione, Michael. Urban geography: a global perspective/ Michael Pacione.—2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Urban geography. I. Title. GF125.P33 2005 910′.9173′2–dc22 2004015892 ISBN 0-203-02352-8 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-415-34305-4 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-34306-2 (pbk)
<< urban_geography >> second edition Today for the first time in the history of humankind, urban dwellers outnumber rural residents. Urban places, towns and cities are of fundamental importance for the distribution of population within countries; in the organisation of economic production, distribution and exchange; in the structuring of social reproduction and cultural life; and in the allocation of power. The second edition of Urban Geography continues to provide an authoritative and stimulating, global introduction to the study of towns and cities. The text synthesises a wealth of material to provide unrivalled depth and breadth for students of urban geography drawing on a rich blend of theoretical and empirical information with which to advance knowledge of the city. The new edition has been extensively revised to reflect feedback from users and to incorporate the latest research and developments in the field. The text is divided into six main parts that explain and discuss: ■ the field of urban geography and the importance of a global perspective; ■ the historical growth of cities from the earliest times and the urban geography of the major world regions; ■ the dynamics of urban structure and land-use change in Western cities; ■ economy, society and politics in the Western city; ■ the economic, social, political and environmental challenges faced by the third world city; and ■ an overview on the future of cities and cities of the future. Urban Geography is superbly illustrated with more than 150 figures, more than fifty photographs and a colour plate section. There are also over 180 case studies and explanatory boxes, drawing insights from across the globe. The text contains a glossary of key terms and words, chapter summaries, key points, study questions and annotated further reading. Michael Pacione is Professor and Chair of Geography at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.
URBAN GEOGRAPHY A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Second edition
MICHAEL PACIONE
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK
TO CHRISTINE, MICHAEL JOHN AND EMMA VICTORIA
Contents List of illustrations
ix
List of tables
xxii
List of boxes
xxix
Preface to the second edition
xxxix
Acknowledgements
xl
Copyright acknowledgements
xli
Introduction
vl
PART ONE: THE STUDY OF URBAN GEOGRAPHY Chapter 1 Urban geography: from global to local Chapter 2 Concepts and theory in urban geography PART TWO: AN URBANISING WORLD
1 2 22 45
Chapter 3 The origins and growth of cities
46
Chapter 4 The global context of urbanisation and urban change
88
Chapter 5 Regional perspectives on urbanisation and urban change
124
Chapter 6 National urban systems
159
PART THREE: URBAN STRUCTURE AND LAND USE IN THE WESTERN CITY
179
Chapter 7 Land use in the city
185
Chapter 8 Urban planning and policy
223
Chapter 9 New towns
256
Chapter 10 Residential mobility and neighbourhood change
274
Chapter 11 Housing problems and housing policy
297
Chapter 12 Urban retailing
326
Chapter 13 Urban transportation
359
PART FOUR: LIVING IN THE CITY: ECONOMY, SOCIETY AND POLITICS IN THE WESTERN CITY
384
Chapter 14 The economy of cities
385
Chapter 15 Poverty and deprivation in the western city
416
Chapter 16 National and local responses to urban economic change
447
Chapter 17 Collective consumption and social justice in the city
476
Chapter 18 Residential differentiation and communities in the city
499
Chapter 19 Urban liveability
541
Chapter 20 Power, politics and urban governance
571
PART FIVE: URBAN GEOGRAPHY IN THE THIRD WORLD
612
Chapter 21 Third World urbanisation within a global urban system
618
Chapter 22 The internal structure of Third World cities
642
Chapter 23 Rural urban-migration in the third world
667
Chapter 24 Urban economy and employment in the Third World
688
Chapter 25 Housing the Third world poor
708
Chapter 26 Environmental problems in the Third world city
748
Chapter 27 Health in the third World City
769
Chapter 28 Traffic and transport in the Third World city
787
Chapter 29 Poverty, power and politics in the Third World city
801
PART SIX: PROSPECTIVE: THE FUTURE OF THE CITY—CITIES OF THE FUTURE Chapter 30 The future of the city—cities of the future
822
823
Notes
853
Glossary
912
Index
931
Illustrations COLOUR PLATES Plates 1–8 between pages 138 and 139; Plates 9–16 between pages 450 and 451.
1
The ancient city: Thebes
2
The fantasy city: Las Vegas
3
The post-industrial city: Glasgow
4
The modern industrial city: Pusan, South Korea
5
The global city: Tokyo
6
The mobile city: San Diego
7
The informal city: Bombay
8
The congested city: Hong Kong
9
The squatter city: Rio de Janeiro
10
The post-colonial city: Singapore
11
The contested city: Belfast
12
The multicultural city: London
13
The emblematic city: Sydney
14
The unregulated city: Rome
15
The defensive city: New York
16
The emerging global city: Shanghai
BLACK AND WHITE PLATES
1.1
Marks and Spencer’s store in Hong Kong
2.1
Waterfront living in Manta, Ecuador…and St Katharine’s Dock, 31 London
3.1
The pyramid at Chichen Itza, Mexico
53
3.2
The Piazza San Pietro, Rome
61
3.3
Terraced housing in the Elswick district of Newcastle upon Tyne
69
3.4
The social polarisation of the postmodern city, Denver CO
82
4.1
The exploding postmodern metropolis of Los Angeles CA
118
5.1
The Banco Popular in Harlem, New York City
128
5.2
The ancient Islamic city and twentieth-century new town, Kano, 155 Nigeria
7.1
High-rise and high-status in San Francisco CA
190
7.2
Late modern architecture in Phoenix AZ
217
8.1
Canary Wharf tower in London
241
8.2
Public housing in the socialist city: Moscow
250
9.1
A private retirement community, Sun City Center FL
271
10.1 Moving home in the USA
9
275
10.2 Gentrification on Butler’s Wharf, London
289
11.1 Public housing in a British city: Glasgow
305
11.2 Council tower blocks and housing association tenements, Glasgow
319
12.1 The Rialto bridge, Venice and Las Vegas NV
327
12.2 A combined retail-recreational experience, Las Vegas NV
333
12.3 The MetroCentre, Gateshead, one of Europe’s largest covered malls
350
13.1 Rush-hour on the Chuo line, Tokyo
366
13.2 The end of the road for an urban freeway, San Francisco CA
367
14.1 Commuters and tourists on Westminster Bridge, London
395
14.2 Deindustrialisation on the River Clyde, Glasgow
406
15.1 The polarised city: London
423
15.2 A burnt-out car by local-authority flats in Possilpark, Glasgow
441
16.1 The redevelopment of Baltimore’s Harborplace
457
16.2 Culture-based urban redevelopment, Gastown, Vancouver
460
17.1 Protest at environmental pollution, New Orleans LA
492
18.1 An exclusive guard-gated community in Nevada
518
18.2 Bangladeshis in Tower Hamlets, London
538
19.1 A protected public space on Manhattan Island, New York City
563
20.1 Low-density residential zoning, Cherry Hills, Denver CO
588
20.2 Social commentary outside the US Mint in Denver CO
604
21.1 Sir Stamford Raffles and a symbol of post-industrial society, Singapore
628
21.2 The Burj al Arab hotel, Dubai
635
22.1 Housing in the indigenous part of Kano, Nigeria
649
22.2 The King Abdullah Mosque prominent in the Islamic city of Amman, Jordan
654
23.1 Kejeta bus station, Kumasi, Ghana, a point of entry for ruralurban migrants
673
23.2 Social polarisation in Beijing: the housing of migrant workers and of middle-class suburban dwellers
684
24.1 A Mexican girl prepares cactus leaves for sale from her doorstep
693
24.2 A worker in a female labour-intensive workshop in Beijing
699
25.1 Large-scale public housing in Singapore
712
25.2 Homeless people shelter in drainpipes, Calcutta
713
25.3 Self-constructed squatters’ housing, São Paulo
721
26.1 Water-collection for domestic use, a daily task in Nairobi
751
26.2 Apartment blocks shrouded in smog, central Beijing
760
26.3 Flooding in Jakarta
764
27.1 Street vendors in Hong Kong
778
28.1 Paratransit in Bangkok
793
28.2 Pedal power: the chief form of personal transport in China
795
FIGURES
1.1
Triggers, processes and outcomes in urban geography
3
2.1
The nature of urban geography
23
3.1
Early urban hearths
51
3.2
The Fertile Crescent and ancient cities of the Middle East
52
3.3
Typical form of a Roman imperial settlement and a generalised example from Roman Britain
55
3.4
The urban structure of medieval Lübeck
60
3.5
Burgess’s model of the industrial city
64
3.6
The processes of residential sorting by class in the nineteenth- 66 century British city
3.7
Layout of back-to-back housing in Manchester
70
4.1
The urban world in 1890
89
4.2
The urban world in 1950
89
4.3
The urban world in 1990
90
4.4
The urban world by 2025
90
4.5
The urban population of world regions, 1970, 1994 and 2025
91
4.6
Average annual rate of urban population growth, 1990–5
95
4.7
Generalised stages of differential urbanisation
104
4.8
The stages of urban development model
106
4.9
Megalopolises of the USA
119
4.10
The megalopolitan trend in Western Europe
120
4.11
Doxiadis’s concept of ecumenopolis
121
5.1
Major metropolitan areas in North America
127
5.2
Migration flows for selected US immigrant magnet metropolitan areas
130
5.3
Major urban centres in Latin America and the Caribbean
135
5.4
Major urban centres in Western Europe
140
5.5
Major urban centres in Eastern and Central Europe
143
5.6
Major urban centres in Asia
147
5.7
Major urban centres in Africa
154
6.1
Deriving the hexagonal pattern of market areas for central places
167
6.2
Hierarchical and spatial arrangement of central places
168
6.3
The changing settlement pattern of East Flevoland
171
6.4
Bylund’s model of settlement diffusion
173
6.5
Vance’s mercantile model of urban development
175
7.1
The fringe belts of Newcastle upon Tyne
187
7.2
Burgess’s concentric-zone model of urban land use, applied to 189 Chicago
7.3
Hoyt’s sector model of urban land use, and its application in Sunderland
193
7.4
Harris and Ullman’s multiple-nuclei model of urban land use
193
7.5
Mann’s model of a typical medium-size British city
197
7.6
Kearsley’s modified Burgess model of urban land use
198
7.7
Vance’s urban realms model
199
7.8
White’s model of the twenty-first-century city
200
7.9
Harvey’s model of the circulation of capital
202
7.10
Principal actors in the production of the built environment
208
8.1
Plan of the model settlement of Bournville
229
8.2
Structure of Howard’s garden city
230
8.3
Residential density profiles in selected European cities
249
9.1
The Abercrombie plan for Greater London, 1944
257
9.2
The British New Towns
258
9.3
Proposed private-sector residential communities in South-East 262 England
9.4
Evolution of new communities in the USA
267
9.5
Locations of major new communities in the USA
268
10.1
Reasons for household relocation
275
10.2
A value expectancy model of migration decision-making
277
10.3
A stress model of the residential-location decision process
278
10.4
Downs’ continuum of neighbourhood change
285
10.5
The concept of the rent gap
291
11.1
Public-housing policy in the USA
308
11.2
Types of accommodation in a post-industrial society
314
12.1
Berry’s classification of urban retail locations
331
12.2
A typology of the contemporary urban retail system
332
12.3
Plan of the Mall of America, Bloomington MN
340
12.4
Retail centres in San Antonio TX
341
12.5
New shopping centre construction starts in the USA
342
12.6
Central-area decline and suburban retail growth in the US Midwest, 1958–63
343
12.7
Stages in the evolution of town-centre shopping schemes in the UK
348
12.8
British shopping-centre development: total floor space opened 349 each year, 1965–93
12.9
The layout of out-of-town regional shopping centres in the 353 UK: the MetroCentre, Gateshead and the Meadowhall Centre, Sheffield
12.10 Major out-of-town shopping centres open or under development in the UK
355
13.1
A typology of commuting flows
363
13.2
Dimensions of the urban transport problem
364
13.3
The relationship between car-ownership and bus-ridership
368
13.4
Models of the relationship between transport policy and urban 376 structure
13.5
The mass rapid transit system and concentrated decentralisation in Singapore
379
13.6
Plan of a transit-oriented community
380
15.1
Anatomy of multiple deprivation
419
15.2
A cumulative causation model of the underclass phenomenon in US cities
423
15.3
Incidence of all offences and property offences in England and 424 Wales, 1950–92
15.4
Male mortality rates by social class and age group in England and Wales, 1976–81
426
15.5
Major sources of poverty among ethnic minorities
427
15.6
Deprived households as a percentage of all households in UK local-authority districts
433
15.7
The geography of deprivation in London
434
15.8
Share of population living in underclass neighbourhoods and extreme poverty neighbourhoods, by region, ethnic distribution and urban location
439
15.9
The geography of deprivation in Glasgow
443
16.1
Major urban policy initiatives in the UK
448
16.2
The geography of urban policy in the UK
451
16.3
Major federal urban programmes in the USA
453
16.4
A general model of economic activity within a developed economy
469
17.1
Determining whether a social process is an element of collective consumption
476
17.2
The hypothetical time-space prism of a suburban housewife
487
17.3
The daily time-space prism of a homeless woman on skid row, 487 Los Angeles CA
18.1
The Gold Coast and the slum in Chicago, 1929
501
18.2
The method of social-area analysis
502
18.3
Social areas in the San Francisco Bay region, 1950
503
18.4
The method of factorial ecology
504
18.5
The components of urban ecological structure
507
18.6
The relationship between life cycle and residential mobility
516
18.7
A model of the assimilation process
524
18.8
Residential spatial outcomes of ethnic segregationcongregation
527
18.9
Residential shifts of Jewish population in Cincinnati OH
528
18.10 Distribution of Wolverhampton’s population born in the New Commonwealth or Pakistan
530
18.11 African-American residential expansion in Atlanta GA, 1950– 531 90 18.12 Spatial process of African-American suburbanisation in the US city
532
18.13 Distribution of immigrant ethnic populations in London
537
19.1
A stress model of urban impact
546
19.2
The elements of a legible city and their application to the urban form of Boston MA
556
19.3
The relationship between crime and environmental characteristics, according to Newman
560
20.1
Forms of urban local government
576
20.2
Spatial structure of local government in the UK
580
20.3
Political geography of the Denver Standard Metropolitan
587
Statistical Area: municipalities of the Denver urban area and land-use zoning in Cherry Hills 20.4
Forms of inter-jurisdictional co-operation: the Metro Denver Network and the Louisville-Jefferson County Compact
594
20.5
Hypothetical example of malapportionment
598
20.6
Gerrymandering in a proposed reapportionment of electoral district boundaries in Philadelphia PA
599
20.7
Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation
601
21.1
Frank’s model of dependent development, illustrated with reference to the USA and Brazil
623
21.2
Wallerstein’s world systems model
624
22.1
A model of the Latin American city
643
22.2
A model of Latin American urban land use
645
22.3
A general model of the African city
646
22.4
The pre-apartheid segregated city
650
22.5
The apartheid city
651
22.6
Structure of the Islamic city
652
22.7
A model of the colonial-based city in South Asia
656
22.8
A model of the bazaar-based city in South Asia
657
22.9
A model of the South-East Asian city
659
22.10 A model of the Indonesian city
660
22.11 A model of the contemporary Chinese city
664
23.1
672
Changing roles of development-related factors in migration
23.2
The migration decision process
678
24.1
The structure of the Third World urban economy
690
24.2
Continuum of employment relationships in the Third World urban economy
695
24.3
The household economy in the Third World city
705
25.1
Major sources of housing for the Third World urban poor
710
25.2
Migration patterns among low-income neighbourhoods in the Third World city
718
25.3
Turner’s typology of squatters
724
25.4
The Klong Toey land-sharing project in Bangkok
740
26.1
Health hazards of garbage-picking
758
27.1
An integrated approach to community health in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
781
28.1
The relationship between urban form and dominant mode of transport
790
28.2
A protocol for assessing transport options
798
29.1
Relations of power within a society
802
29.2
The bases of social power
805
30.1
Goals of sustainable development
825
30.2
Major dimensions of urban sustainability
827
30.3
The relationship between urban population density and gasoline consumption
838
30.4
Concentrated and decentralised concentrated forms of urban development
840
30.5
Remodelling the automobile-dependent city
840
30.6
Le Corbusier’s ideal city: la ville radieuse
842
30.7
Soleri’s three-dimensional city: Babel II D
843
30.8
Three urban configurations
844
Tables 1.1
Themes and questions in urban geography
13
2.1
Definitions of urban areas in the USA and UK
25
2.2
The expanding scope of urban geography
31
2.3
Analytical value of different theoretical perspectives in urban geography
39
3.1
The fastest-growing US cities and biggest population losers, 1980–90
79
4.1
Urban population and percentage urban in more developed and less developed regions, 1970, 1994 and 2025
92
4.2
Average annual rate of change of urban population, 1965–70, 1990–5 and 2020–5
94
4.3
Urban population, number of cities and percentage of urban population by city-size class: world, more developed regions and less developed regions
96
4.4
The fifteen largest urban agglomerations, ranked by population 98 size, 1950, 2000 and 2015
4.5
Number of megacities, 1970, 1994, 2000 and 2015
101
4.6
Regional distribution of the world’s population in ‘million cities’ and the location of the world’s largest 100 cities
101
4.7
Stages of development of a daily urban system
107
4.8
Great Britain: population change, 1951–91, by functional region 107 zone
4.9
Types of population change in metropolitan areas of the USA, 1980–90 and 1990–6
108
4.10 City and downtown population changes in the USA, 1990–2000 110 4.11 Changing population and employment distributions in the USA, 111 1950–2000 4.12 Population change in US central cities, 1960–2000
114
4.13 Alternative interpretations of the suburbanisation process
116
5.1
Ranking of US metropolitan areas by population, 2000
126
5.2
Net domestic migration and movers from abroad, 1995–2000, for the largest US metropolitan areas
129
5.3
Latin America: urban populations for 1990 and 2001 and urban 132 change since 1950
5.4
Urban populations and levels of urbanisation for all West European countries with 1 million or more inhabitants
137
5.5
Functional types of cities in Western Europe
139
5.6
Urban population in Eastern Europe in 1992 and 2001, and urban change since the 1930s
142
5.7
Levels of urbanisation of the former Soviet republics 1959, 1989 and 2001
144
5.8
Population and urban change, 1950–2001, in Asian countries with 10 million or more inhabitants
146
5.9
Urban population change in African countries with 1 million or 151 more inhabitants, 1950, 1990 and 2001
6.1
Classification of city systems based on levels of closure and interdependence
160
6.2
Classification of British towns
162
6.3
Classification of US metropolitan areas by type and size
163
6.4
US city types
164
6.5
Characteristics of central places in southern Germany
168
7.1
Assumptions and principles of the concentric-zone model of urban land use
189
8.1
The main goals of planning
225
8.2
Planned settlements in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain
227
8.3
Major reports and legislation leading to the 1947 planning system in the UK
233
8.4
Main phases in British post-war urban policy
237
8.5
Main advantages and disadvantages of selected growthmanagement techniques
245
10.1 Ten life-cycle events related to residential adjustment or relocation
276
10.2 Housing groups in the London borough of Southwark
281
10.3 Summary of neighbourhood life cycles
284
10.4 Factors underlying neighbourhood decline and revitalisation
287
10.5 Demand-side and supply-side factors underlying neighbourhood 293 revitalisation 11.1 Housing tenure and dwelling stock in Great Britain, 1914–2001 298 11.2 UK dwelling completions by tenure, 1946–2001
299
11.3 US public-housing completions, 1939–91
310
15.1 The geography of poverty in the USA
417
15.2 Principal models of urban deprivation
417
15.3 The thirty-four US cities past the ‘point of no return’
435
15.4 Demographic profile of south central Los Angeles, 1990
437
15.5 A typology of explanations of inner-city decline
438
15.6 Suburbanisation of inner-city problems in the USA, 1980–90
444
16.1 Problems and opportunities of culture-led regeneration
461
17.1 Pressures on the welfare state
478
17.2 Forms of restructuring in public-sector service provision
480
18.1 Factorial ecology of Clydeside: factor structures and loadings
504
18.2 Measurement of neighbourhood cohesion in Glasgow
513
18.3 Forms of social disorganisation in the slum
516
18.4 Ethnic composition of central city and non-central city populations in the USA, 1990 and 2000
533
18.5 Ethnic composition of the British population, 2001
535
19.1 The top ten places to live in the USA, according to Money Magazine, 1997
542
20.1 Types of metropolitan government
573
20.2 Number of local governments in the USA, 1942–2002
580
20.3 Number of municipalities in selected US counties, 1920–70
583
20.4 Metropolitan restructuring processes in the USA
596
20.5 Characteristics of successful grass-roots groups
608
12.1 Hierarchy of planned shopping centres
333
12.2 Changes in shopping-centre land values in the Chicago metropolitan area
345
12.3 The impact of town-centre shopping schemes in Britain
348
12.4 Location and size of enclosed centres of over 500,000 ft2 in Britain
351
13.1 The relationship between transport and urban form in Western cities
359
13.2 Changing mode of journey to work in the USA, 1990–2000
361
13.3 Number of vehicles, Great Britain, 1950–2000
362
13.4 Proportion of households with regular use of a car, Great Britain, 1951–2000
362
13.5 Changes in modal split of work trips in the restricted zone, Singapore
372
13.6 Types of alternative work schedules
374
14.1 The post-war ‘Fordist’ expansionary regime of the late 1940s to 392 early 1970s 14.2 The ‘post-Fordist’ regime of flexible accumulation from the mid-1970s to the present
393
14.3 Structure of world output, 1960–90
393
14.4 World output by sector and major region, 2000
394
14.5 Roster of world cities
402
14.6 Employment change by sector in major British cities, 1981–91
411
14.7 Employment structure of major British cities, 2001
412
21.1 Stages of colonial urbanisation in Asia
626
23.1 Principal reasons for migration from rural North-East Thailand
668
23.2 The demographic and mobility transitions among modernising populations
669
23.3 Average annual rates of rural out-migration in Latin America
674
23.4 Principal policy responses to rural-urban migration in the Third 681 World 24.1 The nature of the two circuits in the Third World urban economy
691
24.2 Types of informally organised market-oriented activities in the Third World urban economy
694
25.1 Indicators of housing quality in high- and low-income countries 708 25.2 Types of rental housing used by lower-income groups in many Third World cities
714
25.3 Examples of ‘owner-occupation’ housing used by low incomegroups in many Third World cities
719
25.4 Proportion of city population in extra-legal housing in various Third World cities
728
25.5 Principal means by which people obtain land for housing in Third World cities
729
25.6 Different attitudes by governments to housing problems in cities and different policy responses
734
25.7 Positive and negative features of illegal land subdivision for low-income housing
743
26.1 Major environmental problems in Third World cities
749
26.2 Household environmental conditions in selected cities
754
27.1 Government-community actions to combat health risks in Third 782 World cities 28.1 Number of passenger cars per thousand inhabitants in selected countries
788
30.1 The multiple goals of sustainable development as applied to cities
828
30.2 The metabolism of Greater London
831
Boxes 1.1
Principal characteristics of globalisation
8
2.1
The assumptions of positivism
33
3.1
Childe’s ten characteristics of an urban civilisation
47
3.2
Preconditions for pre-industrial urban growth
48
3.3
Ur of the Chaldees
52
3.4
A model of the pre-industrial city
56
3.5
Plan of Venta Silurum (Caerwent)
57
3.6
The merchant class and urban growth in medieval Europe
58
3.7
The circular and cumulative model of urban growth
63
3.8
Socio-spatial segregation in nineteenth-century Liverpool
66
3.9
The slum district of Little Ireland in Manchester, 1849
69
3.10
Living conditions in the tenement slums of mid-nineteenthcentury Glasgow
71
3.11
Tenement life in Glasgow
73
3.12
Philadelphia: a seventeenth-century planned town
75
3.13
The township and range system of land division
77
3.14
New York: the urban explosion
78
3.15
Los Angeles: the archetypal postmodern metropolis
84
4.1
The demographic-transition model
92
4.2
Tokyo: global megacity
99
4.3
Overurbanisation
102
4.4
The urbanisation curve
103
4.5
The law of the primate city
105
4.6
Edge City, USA: Tyson’s Corner VA
113
4.7
The changing ethnic composition of US central cities
115
5.1
Urban restructuring and the effect of the Mexico-USA border
136
5.2
The economic and urban development of Shanghai
148
5.3
Australasian cities
149
5.4
Underurbanisation in China
153
5.5
The deteriorating infrastructure of African cities
155
5.6
Informal employment in African cities
156
6.1
Urban systems at the intra-national scale
159
6.2
Assumptions underlying Christaller’s central place theory
165
6.3
The missing middle in the Third World urban hierarchy
176
7.1
Land-ownership and the development of the street pattern in eighteenth-century Glasgow
188
7.2
Burgess’s concentric-zone model of urban land use
191
7.3
The trade-off model of urban land use
195
7.4
The over-accumulation crisis and post-war suburbanisation in the USA
204
7.5
Major agents and motives in the capitalist land-development process
206
7.6
Housing submarkets in Baltimore MD
210
7.7
Externalities
214
7.8
BIDs to privatise public space in New York City
220
8.1
The nature of urban policy
224
8.2
The value of planning
225
8.3
Urban growth management: the Dutch approach
232
8.4
Incentive zoning in Seattle
234
8.5
Land-use conflict in the green belt
235
8.6
Common forms of land-use zoning in the USA
243
8.7
Major principles of smart growth
246
8.8
Marxist-Leninist principles underlying the Soviet socialist city 247
8.9
The Soviet micro-region
248
9.1
Milton Keynes New Town
260
9.2
Where will the new houses go?
263
9.3
The new towns of the Paris region
265
9.4
New urbanism: principles of neighbourhood development
271
9.5
Columbia MD
272
10.1 The concept of housing class
281
10.2 The arbitrage model of neighbourhood racial transition
282
10.3
Housing abandonment in St Louis MO
286
10.4
Geography and gentrification in London: a tale of two postcodes
290
11.1
Rent controls
302
11.2
The Hope VI programme
311
11.3
Sleeping rough in Toronto
315
11.4
Homeless in Hollywood
316
12.1
The Minneapolis skywalk system
335
12.2
The anatomy of the shopping mall
339
12.3
Power centres in the USA
340
12.4
The West Edmonton Mall, Edmonton, Alberta
341
12.5
The nature of commercial blight
344
12.6
The polarisation of retail provision in central Chicago
346
12.7
Retail decentralisation in the UK
354
13.1
Major eras of metropolitan growth and transport development in the USA
360
13.2
Accessibility and mobility
364
13.3
Public transport in Curitiba, Brazil
369
13.4
The political feasibility of high-occupancy vehicle lanes
372
13.5
A transit-oriented community: Tama new town, Japan
378
13.6
Pleasant Hill CA: transit village
379
14.1
The advent of megabyte money
386
14.2
A typology of technopoles
390
14.3
Offshoring: a new international division of labour
395
14.4
Unemployment on the Kirkby estate in Liverpool
398
14.5
World city characteristics
399
14.6
London as a world city
404
14.7
Local economic restructuring in Glasgow
408
14.8
Restructuring the Pennsylvanian economy
410
15.1
Life on a low income
421
15.2
Food poverty in the UK
428
15.3
The Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union
430
15.4
The South Shore Community Development Bank
430
15.5
Grameen borrowing circles in Chicago
431
15.6
In the depths of the ‘inner city’
440
16.1
The London Docklands Development Corporation: area, powers and objectives
451
16.2
Detroit’s empowerment zone plan
454
16.3
Creating a better business climate in Houston TX
455
16.4
A tale of two Baltimores
458
16.5
City marketing, festivals and urban spectacle
463
16.6
The West Midlands Enterprise Board
465
16.7
Urban regeneration in Cleveland OH
466
16.8
Linkage policy in San Francisco CA
468
16.9
The Watts Labor and Community Action Committee
471
16.10 The anatomy of a LETS: the West Glasgow Local Exchange Trading System
471
16.11 The black economy in urban Britain
473
17.1
The importance of collective consumption
477
17.2
Welfare-to-work
480
17.3
Public-choice theory
483
17.4
Human needs and wants
484
17.5
Environmental racism
490
17.6
Differential social access to utility services
491
18.1
You are where you live
505
18.2
Territoriality
508
18.3
Changes in the scale of society
512
18.4
Gated communities
519
18.5
Queer spaces
520
18.6
Ethnicity and race
521
18.7
Measuring segregation
522
18.8
The assimilation of migrant groups
523
18.9
Two models of ethnic segregation
525
18.10 Voluntary apartheid in Detroit
526
18.11 The tipping point
532
19.1
The 1995 Kobe earthquake and its aftermath
547
19.2
Flood-plain development in England
552
19.3
Some principles for designing legible cities
557
19.4
Newman’s design guidelines for defensible space
559
19.5
The concept of user-generated design
562
19.6
Danger areas on a Glasgow housing estate
564
20.1
The California tax revolt
577
20.2
Segregated education
582
20.3
The defensive incorporation of Lathrup Village MI
584
20.4
Legal challenges to exclusionary zoning
585
20.5
The central city-suburban fiscal debate in the Glasgow region
589
20.6
Strategies to resolve political fragmentation
590
20.7 Metropolitanism versus municipalism
594
20.8 The Daley machine in Chicago, 1955–76
598
20.9 The community charge: a short-lived tax
606
20.10 The New Jersey Tenants’ Organization
608
21.1 Defining the Third World
619
21.2 Rostow’s stages of economic growth
621
21.3 Determinants of colonial urban form
625
21.4
630
Delhi: the evolution of an imperial city
21.5
Urban primacy in the Third World
633
21.6
Jabotabek: an extended metropolitan region
636
21.7
Exo-urbanisation in the Pearl River delta region
638
22.1
Structure of the Latin American city: the case of Mexico City
647
22.2
Towards the post-apartheid city
653
22.3
Cairo, Egypt
655
22.4
Mumbai, India
658
22.5
The kampungs of Jakarta, Indonesia
661
22.6
Private cities in Greater Jakarta
662
23.1
Not so bright lights: a migrant’s view of Bombay
675
23.2
China’s urban floating population
682
23.3
Migration controls in Jakarta, Indonesia
682
23.4
Promoting secondary city growth in South Korea
685
24.1
Linkages between the two circuits of the Third World urban economy
692
24.2
Daily activity pattern of a part-time domestic worker in Dhaka, Bangladesh
697
24.3
Waste-picking as a survival strategy in Bangalore, India
697
24.4
Gender, work and human development in Manila, Philippines
701
24.5
Sweatshop labour in a Bangladeshi clothing factory
702
24.6
Child labour in Pakistan
703
25.1
Pavement dwellers in Bombay, India
709
25.2
Factors underlying choice of residential location among lowincome groups in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
716
25.3
The development of San Martin, Buenos Aires, Argentina
722
25.4
The development of an illegal subdivision in Karachi, Pakistan 731
25.5
Forced relocation in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
737
25.6
Principles of the land-sharing strategy in Bangkok, Thailand
739
25.7
Site and services schemes in Pakistan: lessons in failure and success
745
26.1
The inadequacy of water supply in Third World cities
752
26.2
Environmental problems in a low-income community in Karachi, Pakistan
754
26.3
Environmental hazards for children at work in India
756
26.4
The 1999 mudslides in Caracas, Venezuela
757
26.5
Air pollution in the Valley of Death
761
26.6
River pollution in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
762
26.7
The anatomy of a disaster: the 1998 flood in Dhaka, Bangladesh
764
26.8
The ecological footprint of Jakarta, Indonesia
766
27.1
HIV/AIDS: the modern plague
770
27.2
Aetiology of Chaga’s disease
773
27.3
Health problems in low-income settlements in Third World cities
773
27.4
Health-care provision in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya
775
27.5
Urban agriculture in Chinese cities
779
28.1
Traffic and transport in the Bangkok metropolitan region
788
28.2
The bicycle in Third World cities
794
28.3
Cycle rickshaws and traffic congestion in Dhaka, Bangladesh
796
29.1
Clients and radicals in a Lima shanty town, Peru
808
29.2
The definition of an urban social movement
809
29.3
Direct action by the hungry poor
811
29.4
Establishing autonomous housing co-operatives in Karachi, Pakistan
814
29.5
Participative budgeting in Belo Horizonte, Brazil
816
29.6
The Orangi Pilot Project in Karachi, Pakistan
817
29.7
Structure and goals of the Alliance in Mumbai, India
819
30.1
Main urban dimensions of Agenda 21 of the Rio Earth Summit 826
30.2
Cities and environmental issues
828
30.3
London’s ecological footprint
830
30.4
The urban waste economy in Bangalore, India
833
30.5
Project activities with waste scavengers in Bandung, Indonesia 834
30.6
Car-related urban problems
837
30.7
Kansai, Japan: a creative network city
845
30.8
The informational city region of the twenty-first century
847
30.9
Digitale Stad, Amsterdam, Netherlands
848
Preface to the Second Edition The first edition of Urban Geography: A Global Perspective, published in 2001, elicited a gratifyingly favourable response from an international readership of academic professionals and students, and the book has been adopted as a course text in colleges and universities in Britain, North America and elsewhere. This revised second edition benefited from constructive feedback from this international readership. The principal goal of this second edition of the book remains that of providing instructors and students of the contemporary city with a comprehensive introduction to the expanding field of urban studies. The structure of the first edition is maintained, with minor amendments. Each of the thirty chapters has been revised to incorporate developments in the field since publication of the first edition. All the popular study aids are retained, the glossary has been expanded, and chapter references and notes have been updated to reflect the latest research. Users of the first edition will recognise and benefit from the structural continuity, as well as the additional features, of this second edition. For those who are new to the book—if you are reading this it is likely that you share my interest in the city. Cities are fascinating, dynamic and complex socio-spatial phenomena. Knowledge of cities and of city living is of real importance both for academic understanding and in negotiating our daily lives in the urban world of the twenty-first century. Urban Geography: A Global Perspective is designed to provide an accessible introduction to the study of urban geography in the contemporary world. Michael Pacione
Acknowledgements Few books make the passage from conception to publication without the assistance of a variety of outside agencies, and this book is no exception. Preparation of this second edition of Urban Geography: A Global Perspective was facilitated by the professional support provided by Andrew Mould, Anna Somerville, Zoe Kruze and Jo Jacomb at Routledge and Liz O’Donnell for proofreading. Academic colleagues, students and an international panel of reviewers offered valuable comments on the first edition of the book that aided preparation of this revised second edition. In writing the book I enjoyed and benefited from reading the work of other researchers engaged in the study of contemporary urban environments. I am grateful to all the authors and publishers who gave permission to reproduce material in the book. While considerable effort has been made to trace and contact copyright holders prior to publication, the author and publishers apologise for any oversights or omissions and if notified will endeavour to remedy them at the earliest opportunity. A number of friends and colleagues from the international geographic community kindly provided some of the photographs to illustrate different themes in the book. I am grateful to Stuart Aitken (for Plate 4.1), John Cole (Plate 25.2), Bruce Connolly (Plate 23.2a and 23.2b), Roman Cybriwsky (Plates 5, 7.1, 13.1 and 19.1), Larry Ford (Plate 26.3), Brian Godfrey (Plate 9), Rob Imrie (Plate 8.1), Hamish Main (Plate 5.2), Arthur Morris (Plates 2.1a and 24.1), Tony O’Connor (Plate 22.1), Jong-Kie Park (Plate 4), Jonathan Rigg (Plate 7), Philip Rushton (Plate 6), Denis Shaw (Plate 8.2), David Simon (Plate 23.1), Neil Smith (Plate 16.1), and Fulong Wu (Plate 16). All other photographs are taken from my own collection. The maps and diagrams in the book were drawn by Sharon Galleitch, Michael John Pacione and Margaret Dunn. The greatest debt is owed to my family—my wife, Christine, who continues to manage the demands of career and home in a way that is beyond the ability of most males, my son, Michael, whose uncanny ability to solve computing problems is a continuing source of comfort, and my daughter Emma who contributed simply by being the person she is. Collectively all three provided a comfortable and supportive environment in which to work and, when required, essential distractions from the task of writing. Michael Pacione Milton of Campsie 1 August 2004
Copyright Acknowledgements The author and publishers would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce illustrations in this work.
FIGURES Alexandrine Press for figure 6 from Built Environment by P.Gaubatz, in ‘Understanding Chinese urban form’, Vol. 24(4), p. 265, 1998 (Figure 22.11). American Geographical Society for the figure of The Latin American city’ from the Geographical Review, by L.Ford, in ‘A new and improved model of Latin American city structure’, Vol. 86(3), pp. 437–40, 1996 (Figure 22.1). American Geographical Society for figure 3 from the Geographical Review, by L.Ford, in ‘A model of Indonesian city structure’, Vol. 83(2), pp. 374–96, 1993 (Figure 22.10). Association of American Geographers for figure 11.2 from the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, by S.Rowe and J.Wolch, in ‘Social networks in home and space’, Vol. 80, p. 191,1990 (Figure 17.3). Association of American Geographers for a figure from Resource Paper for College Geography 75–2, by P.Muller, in The outer city’, p. 19, 1976 (Figure 18.12). Association of Pacific Coast Geographers for figure 8 from the Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers, in ‘Order and disorder: a model of Latin American urban land use’, Vol. 57, p. 28, 1995 (Figure 22.2). Blackwell Publishers Ltd for figure 3.11 from Geografiska Annaler Series B, by E.Bylind, in Theoretical considerations regarding the distribution of settlement in inner North Sweden’, Vol. 42, pp. 225–31, © Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography, 1960 (Figure 6.4). Blackwell Publishers Ltd and Joint Editors for figure 21.1 from the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, by D.Harvey, in The urban process under capitalism’, Vol. 2, pp. 101–31, 1978 (Figure 7.9). Blackwell Publishers Ltd for a figure of a ‘Stress model of the recreational decision process’ from Geografiska Annaler Series B, by L.Brown and E.Moore, in The intraurban migration process’, Vol. 52, pp. 1–13, © Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography, 1970 (Figure 10.3). Blackwell Publishers for figures 2.2, 3.1 and 4.1 by J.Friedmann, in Empowerment, pp. 27, 50 and 67, 1992 (Figures 29.1, 24.3 and 29.2).
Centre for Urban Policy Research, New Brunswick, NJ for figure 11.1 by G.Galster and E.Hill in The Metropolis in Black and White: Place, Power and Polarization, CUPR, 1992 (Figure 15.2). Elsevier Science for figure 1.1 from Progress in Planning by D.Bennison and R.Davies, in The impact of town centre shopping schemes in Britain’, Vol. 14(1), pp. 1– 104, 1980 (Figure 12.7). Elsevier Science for figure 2 from Habitat International, by D.Shefer and L.Steinvortz, in ‘Rural-to-urban and urban-to-urban migration patterns in Colombia’, Vol. 17(1), pp. 133–150, 1993 (Figure 23.2). Guilford Press Inc. for figure 12.5, by R.Golledge and R.Stimson in Spatial Behaviours, p. 456, 1997 (Figure 10.2). International Institute for Environment and Development for figure 1 from Environment and Urbanization, by C.Hunt, in ‘Child waste pickers in India’, Vol. 8(2), p. 115, 1996 (Figure 26.1). International Thomson Publishing for the figure ‘British shopping centre development’, by C.Guy, in The Retail Development Process, Routledge, 1994 (Figure 12.8). James & James Publishers for figure 6.1, from J.Hardoy et al., in Environmental Problems in Third World Cities, Earthscan, p. 181, 1992 (Figure 30.1). Liverpool University Press for figure 5, from Third World Planning Review, by S.Angel and S. Boonyabancha, in ‘Land sharing as an alternative to eviction’, Vol. 10(2), pp. 107–27, 1988 (Figure 25.4). MIT Press for figure 3, by K.Lynch, in The Image of the City, p. 19, 1960 (Figure 19.2). Orion Publishing Group for figures 1, 9, 10, 14 and 15, by M.Thomson, in Great Cities and Their Traffic, Penguin, 1977 (Figures 13.2 and 13.4). Oxford University Press for figure 10.1, by J.Gugler, in The Urbanization of the Third World, p. 167, 1988 (Figure 24.2). Pearson Education Ltd for figure 3.3, by E.Morris, in History of Urban Form, Longman, p. 52, 1994 (Figure 3.3). Pearson Education Ltd, for figure 2.5, by E.Morris, in British Town Planning and Urban Design, Longman, p. 29, 1997 (Figure 3.7). Pearson Education Ltd for figure 2.2 by J.Dawson, in Shopping Centre Development, Longman, p. 25, 1983 (Figure 12.4). Pearson Education Ltd for figure 7.1b, by R.Potter and S.Lloyd-Evans, in The City in the Developing World, Longman, p. 142, 1998 (Figure 25.2). Pion Ltd London, and A.R.Veness for figure 4 from Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, by A.R.Veness, in ‘Home and Homelessness in the United States’, Vol. 10, pp. 445–68, 1992 (Figure 11.2). Russell Sage Foundation for figure 7.1, by M.White, in American Neighborhoods and Residential Differentiation, Russell Sage Foundation, p. 237, 1987 (Figure 7.8). Taylor & Francis for the figure of ‘Mann’s model of a typical medium-sized British city’, by P.Mann, in An Approach to Urban Sociology, Routledge, 1965 (Figure 7.5). Taylor & Francis for the figure ‘The concept of the rent gap’, by N.Smith, in The New Urban Frontier, Routledge, 1996 (Figure 10.5).
Taylor & Francis for the figure ‘A general model of economic activity within a developed economy’, by P. Ekins and M.Max-Neef, in Real Life Economics, Routledge, 1992 (Figure 16.4). Taylor & Francis for the figure ‘Franks model of dependent development’, by J.Dickensen et al., in A Geography of the Third World, Routledge, 1996 (Figure 21.1) Taylor & Francis for figure 3.2, by L.Brown, in Place, Migration and Development in the Third World, 1991 (Figure 23.1). Taylor & Francis for figure 6.6, by D.Hilling, in Transport and Developing Countries, Routledge, 1996 (Figure 28.2). John Wiley & Sons Ltd for figure 2.1, by F.Boal, in D.Herbert and R.Johnston (eds), Social Areas in Cities, Vol. 1, p. 397, 1980 (Figure 18.8).
TABLES Elsevier Science for table 3 from Progress in Planning, by L.Bourne, in ‘Reinventing the suburbs’, Vol. 46(3), pp. 163–84, 1996 (Table 4.13). Elsevier Science for table 3.1 from Progress in Planning, by D.Benison and R.Davies, in ‘The impact of town centre shopping schemes in Britain’, Vol. 14(1), pp. 1–104, 1980 (Table 12.3). Elsevier Science for table 3 from Progress in Planning, by R.Heywood, in ‘The emerging social metropolis’, Vol. 47(3), pp. 159–250, 1997 (Table 20.1). ITBP for the table ‘Public housing completions 1939–91, USA’, by E.Howenstine, in G.Hallett (ed.), The New Housing Shortage, Routledge, 1993 (Table 11.3). ITBP for the table ‘The hierarchy of planned shopping centres’, by K.Jones and J.Simmons, The Retail Environment, Routledge (Table 12.1). James & James Publishers for tables 3.1, 3.2 and 4.1, by J.Hardoy and D.Satterthwaite, in Squatter Citizen, Earthscan, pp. 20, 68 and 103, 1989 (Tables 25.2, 25.3 and 25.6). James & James Publishers for tables 3.2 and 5.1, by J.Hardoy et al., in Environmental Problems in Third World Cities, Earthscan, pp. 77 and 152, 1992 (Tables 26.2 and 27.1). Oxford University Press Inc. for tables 1.3 and 2.1, by R.J.Waste, in Independent Cities: Re-thinking US Urban Policy, © 1998 by Oxford University Press Inc. (Tables 15.3, 15.6). Taylor & Francis for the table ‘The Main Goals of Planning’ by A.Thornley, in Urban Planning Under Thatcherism, Routledge, 1991 (Table 8.1). Taylor & Francis for the table ‘Pressures on the welfare state’, by S.Pinch, in Worlds of Welfare, Routledge, 1997 (Table 17.1). Taylor & Francis for table 2.1 by D.Drakakis-Smith, in The Third World City, Methuen, 1987 (Table 21.1). Taylor & Francis for the tables ‘Principal reasons for migration from rural North-East Thailand’ and ‘Principal policy responses to rural-urban migration in the third world’, by M.Parnwell, in Population Movements and the Third World, 1993 (Tables 23.1 and 23.4).
BOXES Pearson Education Ltd for figures 1.7 and 3.45, by A.Morris, in History of Urban Form, Longman, pp. 7 and 84, 1994 (Boxes 3.3 and 3.5). Taylor & Francis for material used in box 14.4, by A.King, in Global Cities, Routledge, 1990 (Box 14.5). Taylor & Francis for material used in box 14.7, by S.Dietrick and R.Beauregard, ‘From front-runner to also-ran’, in P.Cooke (ed), The Rise of the Rustbelt, UCL Press, pp. 52–71, 1995 (Box 14.8). Taylor & Francis for material used in box 16.7, by C.Wood, ‘Renewal and regeneration’, in D.Chapman (ed.), Creating Neighbourhoods and Places, E. and F.N.Spon, pp. 194–221, 1996 (Box 16.7). Taylor & Francis for the material in boxes 21.4 and 24.4, by D.Drakakis-Smith, in Pacific Asia, Routledge, 1993 (Boxes 21.4 and 24.4). Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for their permissions to reprint material in this book. The publishers would be grateful to hear from any copyright holder who is not here acknowledged and will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions in future editions of this book.
Introduction The contemporary world is an urban world. This is apparent in the expansion of urban areas and the extension of urban influences across much of the habitable surface of the planet. Today, for the first time in the history of humankind, urban dwellers outnumber rural residents. Urban places—towns and cities—are of fundamental importance: for the distribution of population within countries; in the organisation of economic production, distribution and exchange; in the structuring of social reproduction and cultural life; and in the allocation and exercise of power. Furthermore, in the course of the present century the number of urban dwellers and level of global urbanisation are likely to increase. Even those living beyond the administrative or functional boundaries of a town or city will have their lifestyle influenced to some degree by a nearby, or even distant, city. We inhabit an urban world in which the spread of urban areas and urban influences is a global phenomenon. The outcomes of these processes are manifested in the diversity of urban environments that characterise the contemporary world. The study of towns and cities is a central element of all social sciences, including geography, which offers a particular perspective on and insight into the urban condition. The scope and content of urban geography are wide-ranging, and include the study of urban places as ‘points in space’ as well as investigation of the internal structure of urban areas. Within the general field of urban geography specialised subareas attract researchers interested in particular aspects of the urban environment (such as population dynamics, the urban economy, politics and governance, urban communities, housing or transport issues). This eclectic coverage, allied to the synthesising power of a geographical perspective, is a major advantage for those seeking to understand the complexity of contemporary urban environments. Students of urban geography draw on a rich blend of theoretical and empirical information to advance their knowledge of the city. The breadth of urban geography and the volume of published research may appear daunting to someone approaching the field for the first time. This book synthesises this wealth of material to provide a comprehensive introduction to the study of urban geography in the contemporary world. It is intended primarily for undergraduate students of geography and for those taking urban-based courses in cognate social sciences.
STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK In this introduction I explain the aims and objectives of the book, identify the intended readership and indicate how the material is arranged. I also provide instructors and
students with detailed guidance on how to make the best use of the book. Following the Introduction, the book is organised into six main parts. Part One lays the foundations for the study of urban geography. In the opening chapter we explore the importance of, and relationship between, global and local factors in the processes of urbanisation and urban change. I highlight the major outcomes of these processes and identify the main themes and issues of importance in urban geography. Chapter 2 introduces a number of key theoretical and conceptual issues, and provides a brief history of the subject in order to establish a framework for analysis in urban geography. Part Two focuses on the world, regional and national scales. In this part of the book we examine the origins and growth of cities from the earliest times to the present day, establish the global context for the processes of urbanisation and urban growth, identify recent developments in the urban geography of the major world regions and examine national systems of cities and different types of urbanised region in the world. Part Three considers urban structure and land use in Western cities. We examine the key agents and processes underlying patterns of urban change and develop an understanding of the construction and reconstruction of urban areas with particular reference to major urban land uses and issues such as post-war suburbanisation, new community development, residential mobility and neighbourhood change, housing problems and policies, retailing and transportation. Part Four focuses on economy, society and politics in the Western city. Discussion of the urban economy is set within the context of the changing nature of employment in the global economy and the post-Second World War restructuring of metropolitan spaceeconomies. We consider the nature and incidence of poverty and deprivation, and assess national and local responses to urban economic change. The question of social justice in urban service provision is also addressed. We explore the key social processes of congregation and segregation in the city and examine the concept of community and the different bases of residential differentiation. We then employ the notion of urban liveability to consider differential quality of life within cities along a number of major dimensions. Finally, we discuss the role of local government and the distribution and use of power in the city. In Part Five our attention turns to the urban geography of the Third World, a region that exhibits some of the highest rates of urbanisation and urban growth in the world, as well as the greatest incidences of urban social, economic and environmental problems. I establish the global context for Third World urbanisation before analysing the internal structure of Third World cities. The process of rural-urban migration is identified as a major factor in urbanisation and urban growth. Our attention then focuses on experiences of life in Third World cities, with detailed examination of the urban economy, housing issues, environment, health, transport, and poverty, power and politics in the Third World city. Finally, Part Six employs a prospective viewpoint to consider the future of cities with particular reference to the concept of sustainable urban development, and critically examines the nature of cities in the twenty-first century.
URBAN GEOGRAPHY IN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES The importance of urban systems and environments in contemporary society is reflected in the availability of urban-based courses at all levels of the educational system. In the further and higher education sectors, most college and university departments of geography, as well as academic departments in cognate social sciences, offer at least an introductory class in urban geography. In many departments the importance and scope of urban geography are reflected in the provision of several urban classes organised either in terms of a systematic division of the field (with, for example, classes on urban social geography, urban economic geography or urban historical geography) and/or according to a regional specialisation (with a major division between the urban geography of the Western world and the study of urban phenomena in the Third World). The book is designed to be used as a basic resource for those engaged in the teaching and study of urban geography. The following section offers some guidance for students and instructors on how to make best use of the book.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK INSTRUCTORS The book provides an introduction to the study of urban geography. Its principal characteristics are: 1. a comprehensive coverage of the major themes and issues of importance in urban geography; 2. a global perspective which examines urban environments in both the developed world and the Third World, and in all the major world regions; 3. an approach to teaching that relates explanation of theories and concepts to revealed processes and patterns, employing examples and case studies from appropriate environments worldwide; 4. support of the text by a number of userfriendly learning strategies, including numerous boxed studies to amplify key concepts and illustrate particular issues; maps, diagrams and tables of statistics; photographs; an introductory preface for each chapter; a guide to further reading; a list of key concepts, set of study questions, sample seminar discussion topics (listed in Table 1.1) and a student project for each chapter; a comprehensive list of references; a glossary of key terms; and a work-file approach to encourage active student participation in the learning process. Glossary terms have been highlighted initially in bold type.
For instructors, the material presented in the book can be used in a flexible way to construct and organise several different types of class in urban geography. Three ways in which the book may be used as a basic resource for class instruction are: 1. in its entirety as a means of providing introductory-level students with a general overview of our urban and urbanising world; 2. as a foundation for the study of the urban geography of particular world regions; or 3. as the basis for more specialised classes dealing with specific urban themes. These options can be combined to provide an integrated course across several years of undergraduate urban geography teaching, with a general first-year introduction to urban geography followed by semester-length classes that develop more detailed in-depth analyses of particular issues and themes in the second and subsequent years of study. We can illustrate the potential application of this flexible structure with reference to a selection of the range of urban geography classes on offer in colleges and universities in Britain, Europe, North America and Australasia. The shaded areas in the following table indicate chapters in Urban Geography: A Global Perspective that could be used as a core learning resource for different classes in urban geography. In addition, depending on study objectives and time available, each of the core groups of chapters identified can be supplemented by cross-reference to linked material elsewhere in the book. STUDENTS The book provides a comprehensive introduction to the study of urban geography. It explains the major theories and concepts underlying processes of urban change in the contemporary world and relates them to revealed patterns and outcomes in towns and cities across the globe. It also incorporates a number of features designed to help your understanding and revision of material learned. Thus, the basic resource of the text is supported by a wealth of additional information provided in a variety of forms. These include: 1. chapter previews and introductions that outline the main objectives and issues to be covered; 2. boxed studies that provide supplementary information on key issues and detailed case studies; 3. maps, diagrams and tables that complement the text with supporting graphical and numerical information; 4. photographs that provide a visual illustration of urban environments throughout the world; 5. further reading that identifies key readings to enable you to follow up the themes covered in each chapter; 6. key concepts that act as a shorthand revision guide by checking your understanding of important issues in each chapter; 7. study questions designed to test your knowledge and promote critical consideration of the theories, concepts, themes and issues discussed in each chapter; 8. a project that enables you to undertake independent research and develop a detailed understanding of a particular topic;
9. a glossary that defines the key terms in urban geography; 10. a comprehensive list of major references that acts as a guide for further independent study; and 11. the work-file approach, which involves you as an active partner in the production of knowledge on the urban environment.
STUDY TIPS In addition to the particular guidance offered above on how best to use the book my ‘top ten’ tips for the successful study of urban geography are as follows:
1. To obtain maximum advantage from the book you should make full use of the in-built study features. 2. Ensure that you understand the key concepts and terms. Re-read the text to refresh your knowledge of any you are unsure about. The glossary can also act as a ready reference source for a definition. In addition, there will be several dictionaries of geography available in your college library. 3. Use the end-of-chapter study questions to test your knowledge and understanding. It is also always helpful to try to relate general urban processes and patterns with conditions in a town or city with which you are familiar. (For example, can you identify local incidences of social polarisation, gentrification, ghettoisation, deindustrialisation or suburbanisation?) 4. Take time out to read the boxed studies that accompany each chapter in the book. These not only provide detailed information on particular concepts, issues and situations but can help you relate to the broader themes of the chapter. 5. Study the maps, diagrams and tables. Think about what they are depicting, and identify what trends, patterns and processes they display. 6. Use the photographs as a means of entering into the urban scene. Look at the detail of the environment and think about what is being shown (and not shown). How well does it relate to the theme it represents? 7. The glossary can be used as a quick-fire question-and-answer test for yourself by seeing how well your own definitions match those given. 8. Cultivate the habit of making a regular trip to the college or university library to check recent issues of the main academic journals dealing with urban matters. These include Urban Studies, Urban Geography, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Environment and Planning A, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Cities, Urban Affairs Quarterly, Journal of the American Planning Association, Town Planning Review, International Development Planning Review (formerly Third World Planning Review), Habitat International, Environment and Urbanization. 9. Engage directly in the production of knowledge by creating your own personal workfile of urban materials. These can be obtained from a variety of sources, including: (a) the textbook—make notes, prepare bullet points, annotate diagrams and write short essays on key issues; (b) additional reading—write summaries of important readings; (c) lecture notes and handouts provided by the instructor; (d) class essays, projects or other assignments; (e) your own maps, sketches or photographs of townscapes with which you are familiar and which are representative of particular themes covered in the class; (f) government reports and statistics—for example, published census data and urban planning documents; (g) the media—newspaper and magazine cuttings, television reports and documentaries; (h) the World Wide Web—this provides a vast array of potentially useful information on urban issues, but must be used with critical appreciation of the sources, which can range from international agencies and government departments, through scholarly research articles published in on-line journals, to non-refereed statements
by individuals. You can use a search engine (such as Yahoo, Lycos, Alta Vista, Google or Copernic), to locate sites of interest or, if known, type in a specific address. For example: (i) statistics on human settlements http://www.unhabitat.org/ http://www.unstats.un.org/ (ii) direct access to organisations such as the World Bank http://www.worldbank.org/, United Nations http://www.undp.org/ http://www.un.org/ http://www.cyberschoolbus.un.org/, United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) http://www.unchs.org/, World Health Organization http://www.who.int/en/, OECD http://www.oecd.org/home, Group of 77 Third World countries http://www.g77.org/, US Census Bureau http://www.census.gov/ (iii) newspapers, magazines and television such as National Geographic http://www.nationalgeographic.com/, One World magazine http://www.oneworld.net/, The Times http://www.the-times.co.uk/, CNN http://www.cnn.com/, BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/ (iv) for sites on particular cities and themes such as urbanisation statistics http://www.prb.org/, urbanisation in Asia http://www.asiandemographics.com/, Orangi pilot project, Karachi http://www.urikarachi.org/orangi.htm, traffic conditions in California http://www.dat.ca.gov/, London docklands http://www.lddc-history.org.uk/ http://www.london-docklands.co.uk/, urban planning in the USA http://www.planetizen.com/, smart growth http://www.smartgrowth.org/, new urbanism http://www.cnu.org/, gated communities http://www.gated-cities.com/,
mega-malls http://www.mallofamerica.com/ http://www.westedmontonmall.com/, light rail transit http://www.lrta.org/, Tsukuba science city http://www.tsukuba.org/, Tokyo teleport http://www.tokyo-teleport.co.jp/, US National Low Income Housing Coalition http://www.nlihc.org/, sustainable cities http://www.unchs.org/programmes/sustainablecities http://www.sustainable-cities.org/, globalisation and world cities http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc, photographs of the world’s cities from space http://city.jsc.nasa.gov/cities/. Ideally, your work-file should be in the form of a loose-leaf binder that allows later material to be inserted in appropriate places. This will also help you organise your thoughts, identify gaps in your knowledge and questions for further investigation, highlight the linkages among different themes, and aid revision. 10. Two final points before we commence our study of urban geography. First of all, bear in mind the fact that knowledge of urban geography will be of both academic and practical importance in the urban world of the twenty-first century. Second, and most important, enjoy the learning experience!
PART ONE The Study of Urban Geography
1 Urban Geography from global to local Preview: the study of urban geography; global triggers of urban change—economy, technology, demography, politics, society, culture, environment; globalisation; localisation of the global; the meaning of geographic scale; local and historical contingency; processes of urban change; urban outcomes; daily life in the global village; why study urban geography?
INTRODUCTION Urban geography seeks to explain the distribution of towns and cities and the sociospatial similarities and contrasts that exist between and within them. If all cities were unique, this would be an impossible task. However, while every town and city has an individual character, urban places also exhibit common features that vary only in degree of incidence or importance within the particular urban fabric. All cities contain areas of residential space, transportation lines, economic activities, service infrastructure, commercial areas and public buildings. In different world regions the historical process of urban evolution may have followed a similar trajectory. Increasingly, similar processes, such as those of suburbanisation, gentrification and socio-spatial segregation, are operating within cities in the developed world, in former communist states and in countries of the Third World to effect a degree of convergence in the nature of urban landscapes. Cities also exhibit common problems to varying degrees, including inadequate housing, economic decline, poverty, ill health, social polarisation, traffic congestion and environmental pollution. In brief, many characteristics and concerns are shared by urban places. These shared characteristics and concerns represent the foundations for the study of urban geography. Most fundamentally, the character of urban environments throughout the world is the outcome of interactions among a host of environmental, economic, technological, social, demographic, cultural and political forces operating at a variety of geographic scales ranging from the global to the local. In this book we approach the study of urban geography from a global perspective. This acknowledges the importance of macro-scale structural factors in urban development, but also recognises the reciprocal relationship between global forces and locally contingent factors in creating and recreating the geography of towns and cities. A global perspective also demonstrates the interdependence of urban places in the
Urban geography: from global to local
3
contemporary world, and facilitates comparative urban analysis by revealing common and contrasting features of cities in different cultural regions. The framework we shall employ in our study of urban geography is depicted in Figure 1.1. In reading from left to right, we move from the global to the local scale. This schematic diagram highlights the major ‘trigger factors’ and processes underlying contemporary urban change, as well as the principal urban outcomes of these processes. In this chapter we examine the nature of these factors and processes, and the relationship between global and local forces in the construction of contemporary urban environments. GLOBAL TRIGGER FACTORS THE ECONOMY Economic forces are regarded as the dominant influence on urban change. Since its emergence in
Figure 1.1 Triggers, processes and outcomes in urban geography the sixteenth century, the capitalist economy has entered three main phases. The first phase, from the late sixteenth century until the late nineteenth century, was an era of competitive capitalism characterised by free-market competition between locally oriented businesses, and laissez-faire economic (and urban) development largely unconstrained by government regulation. In the course of the nineteenth century the scale of business increased, consumer markets expanded to become national and international, labour markets became more organised as wage-rate norms spread and government intervention in the economy grew in response to the need for regulation of public affairs. By the turn
Urban geography
4
of the century these accumulated trends had culminated in the advent of organised capitalism. The dynamism of the economic system—the basis of profitability—was enhanced in the early decades of the twentieth century by the introduction of Fordism. This economic philosophy was founded on the principles of mass production using assembly-line techniques and ‘scientific’ management (known as Taylorism), together with mass consumption fuelled by higher wages and high-pressure marketing techniques. Fordism also involved a generally mutually beneficial working relationship between capital (business) and labour (trade unions), mediated by government when necessary to maintain the health of the national economy. The third and current phase of capitalism developed in the period following the Second World War. It was marked by a shift away from industrial production towards services (particularly financial services) as the basis for profitability. Paradoxically, the explanation for this shift lay in part with the very success of Fordism. As mass markets became saturated and profits from mass production declined, many enterprises turned to serve specialised ‘niche markets’. Instead of standardised production, specialisation required flexible production systems. This current phase of capitalism is referred to as advanced capitalism or disorganised capitalism (to distinguish it from the organised nature of the Fordist era). The transition to advanced capitalism was accompanied by an increasing globalisation of the economy in which transnational corporations (TNCs) operated often beyond the control of national governments or labour unions (see Chapter 14). The evolution of the capitalist economy is of fundamental significance for urban geography, since each new phase of capitalism involved changes in what was produced, how it was produced and where it was produced. This meant that ‘new industrial spaces’ (based, for example, on semiconductor production rather than shipbuilding) and new forms of city (such as a technopole instead of a heavy industrial centre) were required.1 TECHNOLOGY Technological changes, which are integral to economic change, also influence the pattern of urban growth and change. Innovations such as the advent of global telecommunications have had a marked impact on the structure and functioning of the global economy. This is illustrated by the new international division of labour in which production is separated geographically from research and development (R&D) and higher-level management operations, while almost instantaneous contact is maintained between all the units in the manufacturing process, no matter where in the world each is located. The effects of macro-level technological change are encapsulated in the concept of economic long waves or cycles of expansion and contraction in the rate of economic development (see Chapter 14). The first of these cycles of innovation (referred to as Kondratieff cycles) was based on early mechanisation by means of water power and steam engines, while the most recent (and still incomplete) cycle is based on microelectronics, digital telecommunications, robotics and biotechnology. The different technology eras represented by Kondratieff cycles shape not only the economy but also the pace and character of urbanisation and urban change. Modification of the urban environment occurs most vigorously during up-cycles of economic growth.
Urban geography: from global to local
5
Technological changes that directly affect urban form also occur at the local level. Prominent examples include the manner in which advances in transportation technology promoted suburbanisation (see Chapter 7) or how the invention of the high-speed elevator facilitated the development of skyscrapers in cities such as New York. DEMOGRAPHY Demographic changes are among the most direct influences on urbanisation and urban change. Movements of people, into and out from cities, shape the size, configuration and social composition of cities. In Third World countries expectations of improved living standards draw millions of migrants into cities (see Chapter 23), while for many urban dwellers in the West the ‘good life’ is realised through suburbanisation or exurbanisation. The condition of the urban environment can also affect the demographic structure of cities by influencing the balance between rates of fertility and mortality. Intra-urban variations in health are pronounced in Third World cities where well above average mortality rates are recorded in overcrowded squatter areas (see Chapter 27), but sociospatial differences in health status are also characteristic of many Western cities. Demographic changes are related to other ‘trigger factors’ such as economic growth or decline, and political change. For example, population growth in a Third World country may induce political attempts to restrict migration, whether within the country to control ‘overurbanisation’ or between countries, as along the Mexico-USA border. POLITICS Cities reflect the political ideology of their society. The urban impact of political change is demonstrated by the case of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (see Chapter 5). During the middle fifty years of the twentieth century the development of new towns and reorganisation of existing cities reflected the imperatives of a command economy and centralised political apparatus. The planned socialist city was intended to promote national economic development and to foster social and spatial equity in collective consumption. Accordingly, high priority was afforded to urban industrial development and the construction of large estates of public housing. With the collapse of communism and relaxation of strict urban land-use controls, capitalist tendencies such as suburbanisation and social differentiation in housing are becoming increasingly evident. An example of how local-regional changes can have a global impact is the way in which the end of the Cold War influenced the cities of the US sunbelt/gunbelt, whose economies had been dependent on defence-related industries.2 Within Western societies, changes in political ideology and subsequent modifications of economic and urban policy have had major impacts on city development. The rise of the New Right governments of Ronald Reagan in the USA and Margaret Thatcher in the UK led to reductions in public expenditure and increased dependence upon the private sector in urban development. This is evident in the rise of agencies such as urban development corporations and enterprise zones, public-private partnership schemes, property-led urban regeneration, and strategies such as the private finance initiative in the UK (see Chapter 16). Politics and economics exist in a reciprocal relationship, the outcomes of which can have a major impact on urban change. On the one hand, the
Urban geography
6
formulation of urban policy may be influenced by political forces such as the opposition of middle-class suburban voters to increased taxation to pay for inner-city services. On the other hand, a political decision by central government not to provide a financial incentive package to attract inward investment by a foreign-owned TNC can affect the future economic prosperity of a city and its residents. SOCIETY Macro-scale social changes can have a significant impact on the character of towns and cities. For example, social attitudes towards abortion or use of artificial methods of birth control may influence the demographic composition of a society and its cities. Popular attitudes towards ethnic or lifestyle minorities can determine migration flows between countries and cities, as well as underlying patterns of residential segregation within cities. This is evident in recent trends towards increased suburbanisation of the AfricanAmerican population in the USA, which has been facilitated not only by the economic advancement of individuals and households but by changing social attitudes to the education, employment and residential status of minorities (see Chapter 18). In a similar manner, the attitude of society towards other minority groups, such as single-parent households, the unemployed, disabled people and elderly people, and towards women, conditions their status and location in the city (see Chapter 19). CULTURE One of the most significant of cultural changes in Western society in the post-Second World War era, particularly from the late 1970s onwards, has been the rise of materialism. This is displayed in conspicuous consumption by those who can afford it. At the urban scale this is manifested in the appearance of a ‘cappuccino society’ characterised by stores selling designer clothes, wine bars, pavement cafés, gentrification, yuppies (young upwardly mobile professionals), marbles (married and responsible but loaded executives), and bumper stickers proclaiming ‘Dear Santa, I want it all.’ It is also evident in an increasing gap between rich and poor in cities (see Chapter 15). While some observers claim to have identified signs of an emerging ‘postconsumerism’, materialism remains a dominant cultural influence in urban society. The effect of cultural change on cities is encapsulated in the concept of postmodernity or post-modernism (see Chapter 2). This embraces social difference and celebrates variation in urban environments, whether expressed in architectural or social terms. Youth cultures have flourished in some urban settings (for example, in inner-city ethnic areas energised by hip-hop and rap music), as have alternative lifestyle communities such as the gay districts of West Hollywood in Los Angeles or Pad-dington in Sydney. Postmodern urbanism is also evident in the growth of cultural industries (related to media and the arts) and in the regeneration (and place marketing) of historic urban districts such as Gastown in Vancouver, Covent Garden in London or the Merchant City in Glasgow.
Urban geography: from global to local
7
THE ENVIRONMENT The impacts of environmental change on patterns of urbanisation and urban change are seen at a number of geographic scales. At the planetary scale, global warming due to the greenhouse effect (caused in part by the waste outputs of urban civilisation) may require the construction of coastal defences to protect cities such as Bangkok, Jakarta, Venice and London from the danger of inundation. Equally, any significant deflection of the North Atlantic Drift current (the Gulf Stream) which carries warm water from the Caribbean to the coasts of Britain and northern Europe would affect local weather patterns and require a costly response from cities in terms of urban infrastructure such as improved winter heating systems, public transport and road maintenance. At the local scale, ‘natural’ phenomena such as earthquakes and landslides can force the abandonment of settlements (for example, Third World squatter settlements constructed on marginal lands) or require major works of reconstruction, as in Mexico City after the 1985 earthquake. For reasons of clarity we have examined each of these important ‘trigger factors’ independently. In practice, of course, they are interrelated and operate simultaneously along with other local-scale factors to influence urban change. These trigger factors are integral elements in the processes of globalisation. GLOBALISATION Globalisation is a term used to describe a complex of related processes that has served to increase the interconnectedness of social life in the (post) modern world3 (Box 1.1). For Robertson (1992 p. 8), the concept refers ‘both to the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole’.4 Globalisation is evident in three forms: 1. economic globalisation: seen in arrangements for the production, exchange, distribution and consumption of goods and services (such as the rise of TNCs, the new international division of labour, increases in foreign direct investment, flexible forms of production and a global financial system).5 2. political globalisation: seen in arrangements for the concentration and application of power (such as the growth of multi-state political-economic groupings, and consideration of local issues within global context).6 3. cultural globalisation: seen in arrangements for the production, exchange and expression of symbols that represent facts, meanings, beliefs, preferences, tastes and values (such as the global distribution of images and information, and the emergent cosmopolitanism of urban life).7 Significantly, there is a reflexive relationship between the global and the local. While global forces lead to change in the city, cities modify and embed globalisation within a local context. Within the global-local nexus, global forces are generally held to be most powerful and their control more spatially extensive. Local forces are seen to be relatively
Urban geography
8
weaker and geographically limited in effect. However, it is important not to allow the discourse of globalisation to obscure the fact that urban BOX 1.1 Principal characteristics of globalisation 1. Globalisation is not a new phenomenon. The processes of globalisation have been ongoing throughout human history, but the rate of progress and its effects have accelerated since the ‘early modern’ period of the late sixteenth century, and more especially over the past few decades in tandem with the transition towards postmodernity. 2. Globalisation involves both an intensification of worldwide social relations through time-space compression of the globe, and local transformations involving enhancement of local identity as well as of local consciousness of the world as a whole. 3. In the global-local nexus, global forces are generally held to be most powerful and their control more spatially extensive. Local forces are seen to be relatively weaker and geographically limited in effect, although certain local actions can have global consequences. 4. Globalisation takes place in cities, but the relationship between the city and global processes is dialectic. While global forces lead to changes in the city, cities modify and embed globalisation within local context. 5. Global forces are mediated by locally and historically contingent forces as they penetrate downwards, coming to ground in particular places. 6. A number of ‘trigger forces’ underlie globalisation but the dominant force is generally regarded as economic. 7. Globalisation reduces the influence of nation-states and political boundaries at the same time that states are organising the legal and financial infrastructures that enable capitalism to operate globally. 8. Globalisation operates unevenly, bypassing certain institutions, people and places. This is evident at the global scale in the disparities between booming and declining regions and at the urban scale by social polarisation within cities. 9. The differing interests of actors means that global forces are sometimes embraced, resisted or exploited at lower levels. 10. The mobility of capital diminishes the significance of particular places, although it may also strengthen local identity by engendering a defensive response by local actors. 11. The location of agents that command, control and finance the global economy defines a global city. These are the bases from which transnational corporations (TNCs) launch offensives around the world. The extent to which cities achieve global status is a major determinant of their prosperity. change is not effected by global forces alone. As we shall see in the course of the book, national, regional and local agents are also of significance. For example, national taxation policies, regional trade-union power and local planning regulations all have an impact on urban development and change. Local actions may also have global consequences, as
Urban geography: from global to local
9
when urban-based protests against socially regressive economic activities (such as the exploitation of child labour) result in changes in patterns of trade and consumption at the world scale. Globalisation should not be regarded as leading automatically to the disintegration of local life. Individuals can either disembed themselves from a locality by operating within a global milieu or embed themselves by attachment to a particular place. Neither condition is exclusive. The reflexive nature of the global-local relationship is evident in the world of international finance, where the disembedded electronic space of the international financial system actually compels embedded social relations in specific locations (such as the City of London), to facilitate discussion of new financial products and engaging in inter-personal exchanges of information. More generally, in the placebound daily lives of most people, particularly those out-with the mainstream of advanced capitalism, globalisation may promote a search for local identity in a mobilised world.8 Globalisation is a highly uneven set of processes whose impact varies over space, through time, and between social groups. Global forces bypass many people and places. Many towns in the Third World, as well as in rural areas of Western society, produce mainly for local consumption using local techniques. Even within global cities, certain neighbourhoods where poverty and disadvantage prevail are
Plate 1.1 An example of economic and cultural globalisation: the British high-street retailer Marks and Spencer’s store in Hong Kong
Urban geography
10
peripheral to the working of the global economy. It should be recognised, of course, that the current situation of social and economic disadvantage in such areas may have been triggered by macro-scale forces such as the investment decision of an executive in a TNC based in a city on the other side of the globe. The unevenness of globalisation is apparent at all levels of society. At the world scale it is seen in the disparities between booming and declining regions, and at the urban scale in the social polarisation between affluent and marginalised citizens. The uneven penetration of globalisation is a question not simply of which institutions, industries, people and places are affected but also of how they are affected.9 Local people and places may be overwhelmed and exploited by the forces of globalisation or they may seek to resist, adapt or turn globally induced change into an opportunity. Resistance is a common response in which global forces are mediated at lower spatial scales. During the 1980s, mass protests were held in a number of Third World cities in an effort to resist the imposition of economic austerity measures by the International Monetary Fund (as a response to the burgeoning Third World debt crisis). More recently, the chamber of commerce in the predominantly Mexican Pilsen neighbourhood of Chicago opposed the siting of a Starbucks coffee shop in an effort to preserve local ethnic diversity from the homogenising cultural influence of a global corporation. Frequently, however, people and organisations must acquiesce and adapt to global forces. The proliferation of clothing sweatshops in Los Angeles and New York City during the 1980s was an attempt by local manufacturers to maintain their competitiveness in world markets. Global connections may also be pursued actively by local agents, particularly if they create new opportunities for local economic growth. In world cities such as London and New York foreign investment in property development, especially during the boom years of the 1980s, boosted commercial property markets by raising rental income, increasing property values and generally expanding business opportunities.10 Provincial cities less attractive to finance capital are usually less able to attain similar benefits. GLOCALISATION: THE LOCALISATION OF THE GLOBAL As we have seen, there is a dialectical or reflexive relationship between global and local processes in constructing contemporary urban environments. The term glocalisation has been used to describe the simultaneous operation of processes of: 1. de-localisation or de-territorialisation evident, for example, in the instantaneity of email communication across the globe; 2. re-localisation or re-territorialisation, whereby global influences interact with and are transformed within local context as, for example, in the creation of historic heritage districts in cities. The effects of ‘glocalisation’ are generally apparent. Persky and Weiwel (1994) have demonstrated how in many US cities a significant share of economic activity continues to serve local markets.11 In labour market terms globalisation is of relevance only for a small minority of workers with the skills necessary to compete in international labour markets. Equally, firms must strike a balance between being sufficiently mobile to take advantage of opportunities that may arise elsewhere, and being sufficiently embedded in
Urban geography: from global to local
11
a local context in order to develop links with local suppliers and labour forces. In social terms, globalisation has positive and negative consequences for different peoples and places. On one hand, it may promote the growth of vibrant multicultural urban communities; on the other it can lead to socio-spatial concentrations of disadvantage. Politically, glocalisation focuses attention on cities as both strategic sites for global interests seeking to maximise profit and spaces where local grass-roots and civil society assert their right to liveable places. By combining the deterritorialisation tendency of globalisation and the re-territorialisation of localisation the concept of glocalisation underscores the dialectic nature of the relationship between global and local forces in the construction and reconstruction of contemporary urban environments. THE QUESTION OF SPACE AND SCALE The complexity of the global-local nexus forces us to think about the meaning of spatial scale itself. As we shall see in Chapter 2, space is a social construct. The nature of urban (and other) spaces is the product of social relations among actors with different interests. When we refer to the global and the local as being related dialectically, we do not mean to imply that scale or geographic space per se should be given theoretical or political priority in determining the social processes underlying urban change. When we speak of global and local scales we are, in fact, focusing on the processes operating at these (and other intermediate) scales, not on space or scale per se.12 Further, in the real world the significance of different geographic spaces and scales is in a constant state of flux, with certain spaces/scales declining in social importance and others increasing. Changes in the relative importance of geographic spaces/scales are reflected in changes in the distribution of power among social groups. This may result in a strengthened position for some (for example, a spatially mobile TNC) and a weakened position for others (for example, a place-bound minority community). We shall develop the concept of social power later in the book (see Chapters 20 and 29). Here it is sufficient to recognise that the notion of discrete spatial scales, global and local, is a simplification of a reality in which different actors have interests, and operate simultaneously, at multiple spatial scales. A TNC makes decisions on the local-regional scale in relation to its branch plant operations, negotiates tax advantages with national governments, secures capital in the international financial markets and adapts its planning strategy to satisfy institutional shareholders based in a variety of countries. Equally, local actors opposed to the closure of a factory providing local employment may use direct action through a ‘work-in’ at the plant, liaise with regional trade union organisers, lobby national government to exert pressure on the parent company or employ international legal experts to pursue the option of an employee buyout of the plant.13 LOCAL AND HISTORICAL CONTINGENCY As was suggested above, in addition to the operation of macro-scale trigger factors, the processes of urban change are also influenced by a host of locally and historically contingent factors that interact with and mediate more general forces of change. There are
Urban geography
12
as many examples of such forces as there are cities in the world. They range from the physical impact of a constricted site on urban development, as in the high-rise architecture of Hong Kong island, to socio-demographic influences such as the concentration of retirees in seaside towns of southern England, or the particular cultural economy of Las Vegas. More generally, global forces come to ground in cities. As Sassen (1996 p. 630) observes, cities are the locations where much of ‘the work of globalisation gets done’.14 Local context, such as the urban economic base, social structure, political organisation, tax regulations, institutions and competing interest groups, exerts a powerful influence on urban change. The central importance of cities within the global economy and society is affirmed also in the ‘hollowing out of the state’ thesis. This contends that globalisation has led to the supranational and local scales becoming more important loci of economic and political power than the nation-state, which, in contrast to its central role during the Fordist era, has assumed the role of enabler rather than that of regulator of economic activity.15 The importance of local action within a globalising world is also a direct consequence of the post-Fordist drive for economic flexibility and product differentiation. The economic advantages that may accrue to cities that can provide attractive production environments (for example, an educated and skilled labour force, good climate and high-quality life space) stimulate innovation and encourage local communities to emphasise the particular advantages of their city as a place to live and work.16 The concept of a dialectic relationship between processes operating at global, local and other intermediate scales provides an essential backcloth to our study of urban geography. PROCESSES OF URBAN CHANGE The interaction of global ‘trigger forces’ and locally contingent factors results in a number of different processes of urban change. These are summarised in Figure 1.1 and will be discussed in detail later (see Chapters 4 and 21). Urbanisation occurs when cities grow at the cost of their surrounding countryside, suburbanisation and exurbanisation when the inner ring or commuter belt grows at the expense of the urban core, counterurbanisation when the population loss of the urban core exceeds the population gain of the ring, resulting in the agglomeration losing population overall, and reurbanisation when either the rate of population loss of the core tapers off or the core starts to regain population while the ring still loses population. These processes of urban change are visible to varying degrees in metropolitan areas of both the developed world and the Third World. The phenomena of peripheral urbanisation and exo-urbanisation are characteristic of cities in the Third World. The concept of peripheral urbanisation reflects the expansion of capitalism into Third World regions and employs a political economy perspective (see Chapter 2) to describe the impact of global capitalism on national urban systems in the Third World. Exourbanisation is promoted by foreign direct investment in Third World countries leading to a pattern of urban growth based on labour-intensive and assembly manufacturing types of export-oriented industrialisation, as in the Pearl River delta region of China.
Urban geography: from global to local
13
The varying processes of urban change underline the value of examining global forces within local context in order to understand the complexity of contemporary urban forms. In practice, the reciprocal interaction between global and local forces leads to a plethora of urban outcomes. URBAN OUTCOMES The outcomes of the processes of globalisation and urban change are depicted in Figure 1.1. Three principal outcomes refer to: 1. changes in urban systems at local, regional, national and global scales; 2. the spread of urbanism; 3. changes in the socio-spatial construction of urban places. Each of these principal outcomes subsumes a host of related processes and outcomes. As we progress through Figure 1.1, from left to right, we obtain more detailed insight into the major themes and issues of relevance to the study of urban geography. In essence, Figure 1.1 provides a set of ‘signposts’ to the subject matter of urban geography. All these topics will be discussed later in the course of the book. At this point, however, it is useful to think about the kinds of question we need to ask to develop an understanding of urban geography. Appropriate questions include where, when and why did the first cities arise? What are the major urban land uses? Further questions focused on the urban economic base, on the social composition of residential environments, urban political structure, urban policy and planning, and the concept of sustainable urban development, also shed light on the dynamics of urban change. The list of questions that could offer insight into the form and functions of cities is almost limitless. (You can think of some of your own.) Some key questions that reflect the nature of urban geography, and the content of this book, are shown in Table 1.1. Examination of Figure 1.1 and Table 1.1 provides prospective students with a useful overview of the scope and content of urban geography. A second method of gaining an understanding of the nature of urban geography is to engage in field observation in the tradition of nineteenth-century social commentators such as Charles Booth in London, Friedrich Engels in Manchester and Jacob Riis in New York. The central area of most cities
TABLE 1.1 THEMES AND QUESTIONS IN URBAN GEOGRAPHY Theme
Question
Urban geography: from global to local
Why study urban geography? What is the nature of the relationship between global and local forces in the production of urban environments? How has globalisation influenced the form and function of cities?
Concepts and theory in urban geography
What do we mean by urban? What contribution have the different major theoretical
Urban geography
14
perspectives made to understanding in urban geography? The origins and growth of cities
When, where and why did the earliest cities arise? What are the social and spatial characteristics of pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial cities?
The global context of urbanisation Are socio-cultural differences between cities declining as a and urban change result of globalisation? How important is your own city in local, regional, national or global terms? Regional perspectives on urbanisation and urban change
Why are cities in the Third World growing faster than cities in the developed world? How did the urban settlement pattern of North America develop? Why are many of the greatest centres of urban life in Europe?
National urban systems
What functions do cities perform? Does any single city or set of cities dominate the national urban system? How extensive is the hinterland of your city?
Land use in the city
What are the major urban land uses? What factors and agents underlie land-use change in the city? How do different populations use urban space?
Urban planning and policy
Why does the impact of urban planning and policy vary between countries? How does public planning affect urban development in the capitalist city? What effect has the collapse of communism had on the form and function of the socialist city?
New towns
What is the difference between an ‘old town’ and a ‘new town’? Should the growing demand for housing be met by building on greenfield land or on brownfield sites in existing cities?
Residential mobility and neighbourhood change
Why do households move? How do urban housing markets work? What factors lead to housing abandonment, gentrification and neighbourhood regeneration?
Theme
Questions
Housing problems and housing policy
What is the relative importance of different housing tenures in the city? Is there an adequate supply of decent and affordable housing? Why are people homeless? What can governments do to improve the quality and availability of housing?
Urban retailing
What forms of retail facility are available in the city? What impact has suburbanisation had on the structure of retail provision?
Urban geography: from global to local
15
What difficulties confront disadvantaged consumers? Urban transportation
What are the dominant modes of travel in the metropolitan area? What is the relationship between transport policy and urban structure? Is the car-oriented city sustainable?
The economy of cities
What is the economic base of the city? How is the urban economy related to the global economy? To what extent has your city been affected by industrialisation, deindustrialisation or tertiarisation in recent decades? What role does the informal sector play within the urban economy?
Poverty and deprivation in the Western city
What aspects of multiple deprivation are evident in the city? Is there an inner-city problem? Do particular neighbourhoods suffer from the effects of longterm decline? What can be done to alleviate the problems of poverty and deprivation?
National and local responses to urban economic change
What strategies have been employed to address the problems of urban economic decline? Is there a role for local economic strategies or for the community economy in urban economic regeneration? What has been the impact of property-led regeneration on the socio-spatial structure of the city? Are cultural industries important?
Collective consumption and social justice in the city
Is there any evidence of social or spatial inequity in access to public services? To what extent have reductions in public expenditure impacted on the provision of welfare services in the city?
Theme
Questions
Residential differentiation and communities in the city
Does the city, or particular neighbourhoods within the city, generate a sense of place for residents? Why does residential segregation occur? What is the extent and incidence of social polarisation in your city? How has it changed over recent years?
Urban liveability
How would you define a liveable city? What are the main hazards of urban living? Is there a relationship between urban design and social behaviour? How do different populations, such as women, elderly people, children, members of minorities and disabled people, cope with the pressures of urban life?
Power, politics and urban governance
What form of government controls the city? Does the political geography of the metropolitan area facilitate or constrain good government? Do citizens participate in urban government?
Urban geography
16
What is the relationship between urban government and central government? Third World urbanisation within a global urban system
How are the processes of urbanisation and urban change in the Third World related to those of the developed world? What evidence is there of the influence of colonialism on urban development? What is the likely role of Third World cities within the global urban system of the twenty-first century?
The internal structure of Third World cities
What are the main structural differences between cities of the Third World and those of the developed world? How has the abolition of apartheid affected the form of cities in South Africa? Is the concept of the Islamic city valid?
Rural-urban migration in the Third World
What are the relative contributions of migration and natural population change to urban population dynamics? Why do people migrate to cities and what are the consequences for the urban geography of the Third World? What is the response of governments to rural-urban migration?
Urban economy and employment What are the major components of the urban economy? in the Third World What is the role of women and children in the urban economy? How important is the household economy in the coping strategies of the urban poor?
Theme
Questions
Housing the Third World urban poor
What are the main sources of shelter for the Third World urban poor? When, where and why do squatter settlements arise? What response have Third World governments made to the problem of low-income housing provision?
Environmental problems in Third What are the major environmental hazards faced by poor urban World cities residents in the Third World? How do Third World cities manage the wastes produced by their burgeoning populations? What is the ecological impact of the city on the surrounding area? Health in the Third World city
What are the chief causes of morbidity and mortality in the Third World city? Are the health problems in Third World cities different from those experienced in cities in the developed world? What can be done to address the health problems of Third World cities?
Traffic and transport in the Third What are the main forms of urban transport? World city What role is played by paratransit? What are the major traffic and transport problems? Poverty, power and politics in the Third World city
How do the poor respond to their disadvantaged position within the urban power structure?
Urban geography: from global to local
17
How important is clientalism? What is the significance of urban social movements in the Third World city? The future of the city—cities of the future
What is sustainable urban development? What is the nature of the relationship between energy consumption and urban form? What will be the form of the city of the future?
may be explored easily on foot at a pace that enables the ‘participant observer’ to absorb the structure of the city and engage with the ebb and flow of urban life. In Glasgow a stroll of less than a mile from the central railway station through the old city to the cathedral represents a journey back in time, over a millennium of urban history. In cities with extensive public transportation systems the urban explorer can cover large areas. In London, for example, the Underground rail system affords access to a variety of urban milieux: the financial heart of the City of London (Bank station), the political hub (Westminster), an ethnic Bangladeshi community (Shoreditch), Georgian residential squares and terraces (Leicester Square), an environment of the super-rich (Kensington), disadvantaged council estates (Hackney) and areas of waterfront regeneration (Tower station). In many cities, especially the low-density metropolitan areas of North America, private transportation is a prerequisite for exploration beyond the urban core. All towns and cities can be ‘read’ by an observer trained in the basic principles and concepts of urban geography. Here, we conclude our introduction to the subject by undertaking a ‘virtual field trip’ to experience the daily rhythms of life in an advanced capitalist city. You can undertake a similar exercise for your own city. DAILY LIFE IN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE You awake to the sound of an alarm clock bought in the local hardware store but manufactured in Taiwan. You breakfast on fresh orange juice from Florida, tea or coffee from Sri Lanka or Brazil, bread made from wheat grown on the prairies of North America, jam from Bulgaria, butter from New Zealand, bacon from Denmark and freerange eggs from a local organic farm. Depending on your job, and income, your choice of clothing for the day may have been designed and made in a Milanese fashion house or manufactured under sweatshop conditions by child or female labour in the Far East. As you leave for work in the city you nod a greeting to your neighbour who is teleworking from home, and to her partner who works flexitime to accommodate domestic commitments. You travel into the city in a car constructed in South Korea. In your office the ballpoint pen on your desk was manufactured in Germany. Your notepad is made from timber harvested from a renewable forest plantation in Sweden. You perform your job using a personal computer constructed and sold locally but designed in Silicon Valley, California, and loaded with software produced in Seattle. You may spend much of your working day in cyberspace, using e-mail and teleconferencing facilities to establish real-time communications with business contacts around the globe. All your discussions are in English, the emerging global language.
Urban geography
18
In your lunch break you visit a McDonald’s, an icon of cultural globalisation in which the same menu and decor are available in almost every large city of the world. With time to spare, you stroll past the security officer at the entrance to a new shopping mall and enter a travel agency where you make a reservation for a summer trip to Bali. In the adjacent music store you pick up a copy of a CD that is currently a chart hit in over twenty countries. You might spend some time sitting on a public bench in the town square reading a newspaper that, in addition to local and national news and weather, contains reports of a bank robbery in Bogota, floods in Dhaka, share prices on the Tokyo stock market, pollution in Lagos and baseball results from the USA. Across the square a small crowd has gathered around a group of street musicians from Peru who are playing traditional folk tunes of the Andes. By the fountain an unemployed man distributes leaflets protesting against the loss of local jobs as a result of downsizing by a foreignowned TNC. Overhead a Russian jet airliner comes in to land at the city’s international airport. At the street intersection enterprising youths rush to clean car windscreens before the traffic lights turn to green. As you rise to return to the office, a party of Japanese tourists ask for directions to the cathedral. You direct them past the redeveloped harbourside where postmodern pavement cafés and gentrified loft apartments located around a yacht marina are replacing the abandoned warehouses and wharves of an industrial past. On the opposite bank of the river the site of a recent garden festival awaits redevelopment under a public-private partnership scheme to build a concert hall, science museum, I-max theatre and a millennium tower. After work you meet some friends in an Irish theme pub, before going on to eat dinner in an Indonesian restaurant. As the city centre empties of its daytime workforce the space is reoccupied by a night-time population of service workers and entertainment seekers. The homeless search for a sleeping space for the night in the doorways of now silent commercial premises, while in the shadows prostitutes and drug dealers ply their trade. The journey out to your exurban home takes you past inner-suburban areas of social housing where groups of unemployed people congregate on street corners and regard passing strangers with a mix of curiosity and suspicion. Many of the young have never had a job and lack the educational qualifications to enter the labour force, while older men formerly employed in heavy engineering are without the flexible skills needed to compete for a place in the post-Fordist economy. Some inner-city neighbourhoods are occupied by ethnic minorities, while others accommodate lifestyle communities, each contributing to the cultural diversity of the metropolis. Farther out, towards the edge of the city, the proliferation of middle-class gated communities underlines the levels of segregation and social polarisation within the city. Once you are on the urban motorway the lights of the city are soon left behind. Out of sight, out of mind—until tomorrow. WHY STUDY URBAN GEOGRAPHY? You should now be in a good position to answer this question. Urban geography provides an understanding of the living environments of a majority of the world’s population. Knowledge of urban geography is of importance for both students and citizens of the contemporary world. Urban places are complex phenomena. Urban geography untangles
Urban geography: from global to local
19
this complexity by explaining the distribution of towns and cities, and the socio-spatial similarities and differences that exist between and within urban places. This book adopts a global perspective for the study of urban geography. The perspective acknowledges: 1. the interconnectedness of global urban society as a result of globalisation; 2. the dialectic relationship between global and local processes in the construction and reconstruction of urban environments; 3. the importance of local and regional variations in the nature of urbanism within the overarching concept of a global economy and society. The concepts, themes and issues introduced in this opening chapter illustrate the complexity of urban phenomena and the explanatory power of urban geography. Concepts and theory provide the essential framework for explanation in any academic subject. Accordingly, proper understanding of urban geography must be based on a combination of theoretical insight and empirical analysis. For the author of a textbook, deciding on how and when to present students with the (sometimes difficult) theoretical content is always a tricky question. This book favours a dual approach. Throughout the text, relevant theory and concepts are integrated with empirical evidence to illuminate particular themes and issues under investigation. In addition, however, since students should be familiar with the key philosophical perspectives and debates at an early stage, these are introduced in the following chapter. Together, the two chapters that comprise Part One of the book provide a foundation for our subsequent discussion of the wide range of themes and issues that constitute the subject matter of urban geography. FURTHER READING BOOKS J.Benyon and D.Dunkerley (2000) Globalization: The Reader London: Athlone Press L.Budd and S.Whimster (1992) Global Finance and Urban Living London: Routledge S.Clark and G.Gaile (1998) The Work of Cities Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press K.Cox (1997) Spaces of Globalization: Reasserting the Power of the Local New York: Guilford Press P.Dicken (1998) Global Shift: Transforming the World Economy New York: Guilford Press J.Eade (1997) Living the Global City: Globalisation as Local Process London: Routledge P.Knox and P.Taylor (1995) World Cities in a World System Cambridge: Cambridge University Press R.Robertson (1992) Globalisation London: Sage S.Sassen (1994) Cities in a Global Economy Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press J.Short and Y-H.Kim (1999) Globalization and the City London: Longman
JOURNAL ARTICLES E.Berner and R.Korff (1995) Globalization and local resistance: the creation of localities in Manila and Bangkok International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 19(2), 208–21 N.Brenner (1999) Globalisation as reterritorialisation: the re-scaling of urban governance in the European Union Urban Studies 36(3), 431–51
Urban geography
20
K.Cox (1995) Globalization, competition and the politics of local economy development Urban Studies 32(2), 213–24 M.Frost and N.Spence (1993) Global city characteristics and central London’s employment Urban Studies 30(3), 547–58 D.Graham and N.Spence (1995) Contemporary deindustrialisation and tertiarisation in the London economy Urban Studies 32(6), 213–24 C.Hamnett (1994) Social polarisation in global cities: theory and evidence Urban Studies 31(3), 401–24 J.May (1996) Globalization and the politics of place: place and identity in an inner London neighbourhood Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 21, 194–215 G.Mohan (2000) Dislocating globalisation: power, politics and global change Geography 85(2), 121–33 S.Sassen (1996) Cities and communities in the global economy: rethinking our concepts American Behavioral Scientist 39, 629–39 D.Walker (1996) Another round of globalization in San Francisco Urban Geography 17(1), 60–94
KEY CONCEPTS ■ urbanisation ■ urban growth ■ urbanism ■ global perspective ■ trigger factors ■ globalisation ■ glocalisation ■ global-local nexus ■ spatial scale ■ local contingency ■ hollowing out of the state ■ global village
STUDY QUESTIONS 1. Why study urban geography? 2. Examine the influence of global-scale ‘trigger factors’ in urban change. 3. With reference to particular examples, illustrate how locally or historically contingent factors can mediate the urban impact of globalisation. 4. In his play Coriolanus the English dramatist William Shakespeare asked, ‘What is the city but the people?’ What did he mean? Write an account of a city as seen through the eyes of a member of a particular social group, such as a yuppie, homeless person, public official, property speculator or member of an ethnic or lifestyle minority. PROJECT Most towns and cities can be ‘read’ by an observer with a knowledge of urban geography. Using the example of the ‘virtual field trip’ presented in this chapter as a guide prepare an analytical description of the pattern of daily activity in any city with
Urban geography: from global to local
21
which you are familiar. In your account you should: 1. attempt both to describe and to interpret the observed patterns of daily life in your city; 2. consider how the different population groups and areas fit into the life of the city; 3. relate your observations of urban life to the key themes and issues in urban geography identified in this chapter. Which of the general themes and issues are of particular relevance to your city? Does your city exhibit specific local characteristics that influence its form and function? 4. illustrate your account, if you wish, with relevant supporting material such as field sketches, photographs, newspaper cuttings, published statistics or government reports.
2 Concepts and Theory in Urban Geography Preview: the scope of urban geography; the concept of urban; the urban as an entity; urban as a quality; the importance of a spatial perspective; the value of the urban dimension; a history of urban geography; environmentalism; positivism; behaviouralism; humanism; structuralism; managerialism; postmodernism; moral philosophy; levels of urban analysis
INTRODUCTION As we saw in Chapter 1, in approaching a subject for the first time it is useful to begin by obtaining an overview of the main conceptual approaches, themes and issues that comprise the field. In this chapter we describe the scope of urban geography and its links with other branches of geography. We define the concept of urban and explain the value of an urban geographical perspective for an understanding of contemporary towns and cities. We establish the academic context for the study of urban geography by providing a brief history of the subject. In this discussion we relate work in urban geography to the major theoretical developments in the discipline of geography. Finally, we employ the concept of levels of analysis to illustrate the kind of research undertaken by urban geographers from the global to the local scale. THE SCOPE OF URBAN GEOGRAPHY Urban geographers are concerned to identify and explain the distribution of towns and cities and the socio-spatial similarities and contrasts that exist within and between them. There are thus two basic approaches to urban geography: 1. The first refers to the spatial distribution of towns and cities and the linkages between them: the study of systems of cities. 2. The second refers to the internal structure of urban places: the study of the city as a system. In essence, urban geography may be defined as the study of cities as systems within a system of cities.1 Figure 2.1 indicates the scope of urban geography as well as the subdiscipline’s links with other branches of geography. The diagram also indicates the power of urban geography to synthesise many different perspectives so as to advance our understanding of urban phenomena. This eclectic approach to the analysis of urban places extends beyond geography to incorporate research findings and knowledge across
Concepts and theory in urban geography
23
traditional disciplinary boundaries. The integrative power of urban geography is a key characteristic of the subdiscipline. A second principal characteristic of geographical analysis of the city is the centrality of a spatial perspective. This distinguishes urban geography from cognate areas of urban study such as urban economics, urban sociology or urban politics. We shall see later that there is a long-standing debate among social scientists over the relative importance of spatial and social forces for the explanation of urban phenomena. However, as we saw in Chapter 1, it is important to be clear about the place of space in urban geography. By acknowledging the importance of spatial location we are not implying that space per se is the key explanatory variable underlying patterns of human activity in the city. The significance of space varies with context. For example, spatial location is of no real significance in the
Figure 2.1 The nature of urban geography electronic hyperspace occupied by flows of finance between cities in the global economy but may be of fundamental importance for the spread of infectious diseases in a Third
Urban geography
24
World squatter settlement. The spatial perspective of urban geography is of real analytical value because, as Massey (1985)2 observed, the world does not exist on the head of a pin. DEFINING THE URBAN In approaching the concept of urban it is useful to draw a distinction between the question of what is an urban place, and what is urban. This is more than an exercise in semantics. The distinction between the urban as a physical entity and the urban as a quality helps us to understand the complexity of urban life, and illuminates different approaches to the study of cities. THE URBAN AS AN ENTITY Four principal methods are employed to identify urban places: 1. Population size. Since urban places are generally larger than rural places, at some point along the population-size scale it should be possible to decide when a village becomes a town. In practice, this urban population threshold varies over time and space. In Sweden any settlement with more than 200 inhabitants is classed as urban in the national census, whereas in the USA the population minimum for urban status is 2,500; in Switzerland it is 10,000, rising to 30,000 in Japan. Such diversity reflects social context. Given the sparse distribution of settlement in many areas of Sweden, a threshold of 200 may be appropriate, whereas in a densely settled country such as Japan virtually all settlements would exceed such a low urban threshold population. If not made explicit, these differences may complicate international comparison. 2. Economic base. In some countries population size is combined with other diagnostic criteria to define an urban place. In India, for example, a settlement must have more than 75 per cent of the adult male population engaged in non-agricultural work to be classified as urban. 3. Administrative criteria. The majority of towns and cities in the world are defined according to legal or administrative criteria. The definition of urban places by national governments leads to great diversity, which creates difficulties for comparative research that can be overcome only by urban analysts constructing their own definitions and applying them uniformly across the globe. A second problem with administrative definitions is that these may have little correspondence with the actual physical extent of the urban area. A frequent problem is under-bounding, where the built-up area of the city extends beyond the urban administrative boundary. This may lead to major fiscal difficulties for the central city deprived of taxes from commuters resident beyond the legal boundaries of the city. 4. Functional definitions. To address problems such as underbounding (and its converse, overbounding), urban researchers devised ‘functional urban regions’ which reflect the real extent of urban influence. The concept of the extended urban area was first introduced by the US Bureau of the Census in 1910 and later developed into the Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA) in 1960 and, since 1983, the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Areas
Concepts and theory in urban geography
25
(CMSAs) are formed by two or more contiguous MSAs.3 As Table 2.1 shows, the US definition includes measures of population size, centrality and economic function. In 2000 a review of standards for defining US metropolitan statistical areas retained the two main principles established in 1960: 1. settlement form (based on the population size of a central core city); 2. functional integration between central and outlying counties (reflected in journeys to work, with this criterion raised from 15 per cent to 25 per cent). Other criteria for inclusion within a metropolitan area (see Table 2.1) were dropped. The 2000 standards identify two main types of core based statistical areas (CBSAs). These are: 1. metropolitan statistical areas, defined around at least one Census Bureau-defined urbanised area of 50,000 or more population; 2. micropolitan statistical areas, defined around at least one urban cluster of at least 10,000 and less than 50,000 population. Adjacent CBS As that have sufficient employment interchange (measured using journeyto-work data) are grouped to form larger ‘combined statistical areas’. Another significant development was the replacement of a ‘central cities’ classification with one of ‘principal cities’ (defined on the basis of a variety of population and employment data). While this will capture many of the previous central cities it will also reflect recent changes in the US urban landscape by identifying newer outlying employment centres as principal cities. Within metropolitan statistical areas the 2000
TABLE 2.1 DEFINITIONS OF URBAN AREAS IN THE USA AND UK The US Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area is: 1. Either one central city with a total population of 50,000 or more or two contiguous cities constituting a single community with a combined population of 50,000 and a minimum population of 15,000 for the smaller of the two. 2. The remainder of the county to which the central city belongs. 3. Adjacent counties, if: ■ 75 per cent or more of the labour force is non-agricultural. ■ At least 15 per cent of workers in the outlying county work in the central county, or 25 per cent of workers in that county live in the central county, i.e. there are significant journey-towork links between areas. ■ At least 50 per cent of residents in a county meet density requirements or non-agricultural employment thresholds. Metropolitan Statistical Areas are also categorised into four levels based on total population (level A: MSAs of 1 million inhabitants or more; level B: 250,000–1 million; level C: 100,000–250,000; level D: less than 100,000). In level A MSAs, Primary Metropolitan Statistical Areas may be identified. Each PMSA consists of
Urban geography
26
a large urbanised county or cluster of counties that demonstrates very strong internal economic and social links, in addition to close ties with neighbouring areas. When PMSAs are defined, the MSA of which they are component parts is redesignated a Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area. Not all PMSAs, however, have a central city. The UK Standard Metropolitan Labour Area has a core plus ring with a combined population of at least 70,000 with: 1. A core consisting of a local authority administrative area or number of contiguous areas with a density of five jobs or more per acre (13.75 per hectare); or a single administrative area with 20,000 or more workers. 2. A ring consisting of administrative areas contiguous to the core and sending 15 per cent of their economically active population to that core.
standards identify two types of counties as a basis for metropolitan divisions. These are: 1. main counties, with 65 per cent or more of employed residents who remain in the county to work, and with a jobs-to-resident-workers ratio of 0.75 or greater; 2. secondary counties, with a high jobs-to-resident-workers ratio (0.75 or greater), but a lower percentage of employed residents working within the county (50–64.9 per cent). Main counties can stand alone as a metropolitan division or can provide the organising basis for a metropolitan division. Secondary counties must combine with another secondary county or with a main county to form the basis of a metropolitan division. The remaining counties of an MSA are assigned to the main and secondary counties with which they have the highest commuting interchange. Metropolitan divisions, if present in an MSA, will account for all of its territory. Comparison of the 2000 metropolitan standards with the 1990 standards revealed that the new definitions accounted for 90 per cent of the US population (compared with 80 per cent for the 1990 definitions). Clearly, the application of the new urban standards will result in a change of status for many US counties. Geographers in the UK have sought to define a similar set of daily urban systems. A first attempt identified Standard Metropolitan Labour Areas comprising a core plus metropolitan ring that together formed the daily urban system (Table 2.1). A development of this system added an outer ring consisting of all local authorities that send more commuters to the core in question than to any other core, the whole being designated a Local Labour Market Area (LLMA). A conceptually similar scheme is that based on Functional Urban Regions, which have been used to compare changing patterns of urbanisation in Western Europe.4 THE URBAN AS A QUALITY In contrast to definitions of the city as a physical entity, the concept of the urban as a quality is related more to the meaning of urban places and the effect of the urban milieu on people’s lifestyles (and vice versa). Clearly, although cities exist as physical objects, it is by no means certain that they are perceived by their inhabitants in the same way that they are objectively structured. It is reasonable, therefore, to think of a city as having both an objective physical structure and a subjective or cognitive structure.
Concepts and theory in urban geography
27
We each have our own conception of what a city is and of our local town or city. The same urban space can be seen in different ways by residents, tourists, workers, elderly people, unemployed people, women and children. For the homeless person the city may be a cold, anonymous and inhospitable place; for the elderly a spatially restricted world; for the wealthy a cornucopia of opportunity and well-being. Understanding these subjective interpretations of the urban is important, because meanings inform us not only about the places to which they refer but also about the people who articulate them and the social context in which they live. Urban geographers and others have sought to identify urban meaning through two main approaches. 1. Cognitive mapping. Geographers, planners and environmental psychologists have employed mental maps or cognitive mapping techniques to explore the subjective world of urban places, with a view to both obtaining a better understanding of human behaviour in the urban environment and improving the quality of urban life.5 Whereas traditional means of cognitive mapping provide subjective spatial representations of urban environments, more recently postmodern approaches seek to ‘map’ the meanings of the city for different ‘textual communities’ who share a common understanding of the ‘text’ and organise their lives accordingly as, for example, in the creation of a ‘suburban mentality’.6 2. Urbanism as a way of life. Early efforts to identify urban places in terms of a distinct lifestyle were based on Wirth’s (1938) concept of a rural-urban continuum.7 This argued that as the size, density and heterogeneity of places increased, so did the level of economic and social disorganisation. Wirth, a member of the Chicago school of human ecology, regarded urbanisation as a process leading to the erosion of the moral order of society due to the concomitant decline of community. He saw the urban as a separate spatial realm with its own environmental influences on individuals, and he contrasted the social disorganisation of urban life (in which much social interaction is of a transitory and superficial nature with ‘unknown others’) with the strong extended family links and communities in small settlements and rural areas. More recent perspectives that acknowledge the interpenetration of social realms have rejected the crude dualism of bipolar concepts such as urban-rural or public-private. Accordingly, although cities do exert a particular influence on their inhabitants the concept of a rural-urban continuum has been criticised: 1. for its Western ethnocentrism (which assumed that the rural-urban change process is universally applicable); 2. by studies which reveal the presence of ‘village communities’ in cities (including Wirth’s own work on the ghetto);8 and 3. for failure to locate the process of urbanisation within the political economy of capitalism (not least the impact of wider social, economic and political changes in rural areas, as demonstrated by the presence of ‘urban’ societies in supposedly rural areas).9 In seeking to reinterpret the meaning of ‘urban’, Harvey (1973, 1985) and Castells (1977) dispensed with the notion of a separate urban realm and concluded that while urbanism (as a way of life associated with residence in an urban area) has a distinctive structure and
Urban geography
28
character, it exists within a larger framework created by the forces of capitalism.10 This means that ‘urban lifestyles’ can spread beyond the physical limits of the city. The quintessential diversity of urban life is central to postmodern representations of the city. Informed by processes of globalisation, social polarisation, cultural fragmentation and advances in information and communications technology, these focus on the rise of new cultural groupings and urban spaces, such as those defined by lifestyle communities.11 Postmodern readings of the city as ‘text’ employing urban metaphors, such as the city as jungle, bazaar, organism and machine,12 produce a multitude of representations of cities from the perspectives of different populations. In order to understand the truth of the city we need to acknowledge the ‘reality’ of the city as a concrete construction (thing) and as an abstract representation (idea), and examine how each influences the form of the other. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SPACE AND PLACE Place is part of but different from space. Place is a unique and special location in space notable for the fact that the regular activities of human beings occur there. Moreover, because it is a site of such activities and all that they entail, place may furnish the basis of our sense of identity as human beings, as well as for our sense of community with others. In short, places are special sites in space where people live and work and where, therefore, they are likely to form intimate and enduring connections. As we see in Chapter 18, even in a globalising world a sense of place is of real importance in people’s daily lives. Paradoxically, the advent of cyberspace has re-focused attention on the importance of places in urban life. There is growing recognition among urban scholars that place is a central concept in the analysis of how urban areas are constructed and come to have meaning for their residents. Furthermore, as the constraints of geographical distance become less important, the specific features of particular locales are becoming more important in the locational decisions of businesses and households. The ‘construction’ of place is also a characteristic of the restructuring of many contemporary cities from being centres of production (for example, the steeltowns of yesteryear) to being centres of consumption (for example, Las Vegas of today), in the sense that they provide the context in which goods and services are compared, evaluated, purchased and used. Places such as London’s Covent Garden or Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco obtain a distinctive character that not only reinforces the place’s sense of identity but transforms the locality into an ‘item of consumption’, a process often boosted by city marketing strategies (see Chapter 16). In striving to redefine ‘urban’ in other than empirical terms, and to explain the meaning of urban life, both Harvey and Castells rightly rejected notions of ‘spatial fetishism’ (which assigned causal power to space per se in determining human action) and emphasised the need to examine the role of urban places in capitalist society. However, it is important not to dismiss completely the power of space. Space is more than a medium in which social, economic and political processes operate. The dimensions of space—size, density, distance, direction, territory and location—exert powerful influences on urban development and on human interaction. Distance and direction have
Concepts and theory in urban geography
29
a direct effect on social networks, journeys to work and physical access to place-bound facilities. The size and density of residential developments have been shown to influence the incidence of deviant behaviour and social pathologies. The concept of territoriality contributes to the formation of discrete sub-areas within cities, often segregated on ethnic or class lines. The partitioning of space by local government boundaries has implications for the social composition and fiscal health of different areas and the quality of life of residents. Competition between local administrations to attract desirable developments, such as shopping centres, and exclude undesirable facilities, such as mental hospitals, also has a fundamental spatial basis. There is a reciprocal relationship between society and space. As Massey (1984 p. 52) observed, ‘just as there are no purely spatial processes, neither are there any non-spatial social processes’.13 A more recent challenge to the significance of geographical space has accompanied the advent of cyberspaces (such as the Internet), which for some authors has undermined the relevance—conceptual and actual—of ‘real’ space. It is argued that as a result of ‘time-space compression’, cyberspace negates the effects of physical separation and produces new ‘spaceless, placeless social spaces’ in which people can interact.14 While cyberspace undoubtedly has spatial implications, the suggestion that it heralds the ‘end of geography’ is excessive, not least because even in advanced societies connections to cyberspace are unevenly distributed.15 This is illustrated clearly by the contrast between elite, and often physically enclosed, communities with extensive links to the global information superhighway and spatially proximate ‘off-line’ urban spaces occupied by the poor, where time and space constraints are profoundly real.16 THE VALUE OF THE URBAN DIMENSION The Wirthian association of particular lifestyles with different settlement sizes is now regarded as unacceptably simplistic. Some have extended this argument to claim that the concept of urban has become redundant on the grounds that, in Western societies at least, we are all ‘urban’ no matter where we live. This has led some to conclude that it is neither fruitful nor appropriate to study the city in its own right.17 Leaving aside the fact that this represents a Western view of contemporary society which is not yet applicable to all parts of the world, the suggestion that the city cannot be a significant unit of study confuses two different questions. These are: 1. whether cities can be objects of analysis; 2. whether explanations of ‘urban phenomena’ can be restricted to the urban level. As Agnew et al. (1984)18 point out, a negative answer to the second question does not require a negative answer to the first. We can reject the idea of ‘urban explanation’ while accepting the urban as a valid object of analysis. Cities are places—or, more accurately, conglomerations of overlapping and interrelated places—and, as we have seen, places matter! Social relations occur in, and help to constitute, places. Individuals, households, communities, companies and public agencies exist and operate in particular places. People’s social, economic and political relations are embedded in the particularity of specific places. The results of global-level structural forces come to ground in particular places. To maintain that cities are merely elements in the capitalist mode of production
Urban geography
30
ignores significant variations between and within urban places, as well as the complex suite of other social and cultural factors shown to be involved in the construction and reconstruction of urban environments.19 More recent arguments against the urban as a frame of reference reflect those that dismiss the value of space, and contend that advances in telecommunications technologies will lead to the effective dissolution of the city on the grounds that, once time has become instantaneous, spatial congregation becomes unnecessary.20 Such technologically deterministic views ignore the relational links between new information technologies and urban form which have been apparent ever since the introduction of the telegraph, wireless and telephone in the nineteenth century.21 New technologies contribute to the reconstruction of urban space but do not render it redundant. Visions of the ‘spaceless city’ greatly overestimate the degree to which virtual reality can substitute for place-based face-to-face interaction.22 As Amin and Graham (1997) conclude, the contemporary city, while housing vast arrays of telematic entry points into the burgeoning worlds of electronic space, is a cauldron of emotional and personal worlds and attachments, an engine of reflexivity, trust and reciprocity.23 While many cities and citizens are linked into an electronic ‘non-place urban realm’,24 place-based relational networks that rely on propinquity and physical interaction—the key characteristics of urban places—remain central to the experience of human social, economic and cultural life. The fundamental importance of towns and cities as focal points in contemporary society, in both the developed and the developing realms, emphasises the significance of the urban dimension and underlines the value of the study of urban geography. A BRIEF HISTORY OF URBAN GEOGRAPHY Urban geography is an established branch of geography that attracts researchers and students in significant numbers, and produces a large and expanding volume of published work to aid our understanding of the city. The advance of urban geography to a central position within the discipline has occurred over the past half-century. As Herbert and Johnston (1978 p. 1) noted: whereas in the early 1950s a separate course on urban geography at an English-speaking university was quite exceptional, today the absence of such a course would be equally remarkable; indeed, in many institutions students can opt for a group of courses treating different aspects of the urban environment.25 Urban geography is a dynamic subdiscipline that comprises a combination of past ideas and approaches, current concepts and issues that are still being worked out (Table 2.2). It may be likened to: a city with districts of different ages and vitalities. There are some longestablished districts dating back to a century ago and sometimes in need of repair; and there are areas which were once
Concepts and theory in urban geography
31
Plate 2.1 The variety of urban environments is shown by examples of ‘waterfront living’ in (top) a shanty town built on stilts over a coastal marsh in the port-city of Manta, Ecuador, and (bottom) the gentrified St Katharine’s Dock in central London TABLE 2.2 THE EXPANDING SCOPE OF URBAN GEOGRAPHY Systems of cities
Cities as systems
Urban origins and growth
Site and situation of settlements
Regional patterns of settlement
Urban morphology Townscape analysis Urban ecology
Central place theory Settlement classification
Social area analysis Factorial ecology Delimitation of the central business district
Population movements Migration decisions Suburbanisation
Residential mobility Retailing and consumer behaviour Urban imagery
Urban geography
32
Urban origins and growth
Site and situation of settlements
The role of Regional patterns cities in ofthe settlement national political economy
Urban morphology problems in structural context Townscape analysis Urban ecology Economic restructuring Poverty andanalysis deprivation Social area The inner-city problem Factorial ecology Delimitation of the central business district Housing markets and gentrification The urban property Residential mobilitymarket Traffic and transport problems Retailing and consumer behaviour The urban physical environment Urban imagery Housing, health and economy in Third Power World and citiespolitics Territorial justice The urban impact Differential accessoftoglobalisation services Social construction of urban space Cultural diversity in cities Social justice Urban liveability Sustainable cities
Edge cities Counter-urbanisation Central place theory Settlement classification Rural-urban migration in the Third World Population movements Migration decisions Suburbanisation Urban and regional planning Globalisation of culture and society The global economy The global urban system World cities and global cities Megacities Technopoles
Future urban form
fashionable but are so no longer, while others are being rehabilitated. Other districts have expanded recently and rapidly; some are well built, others rather gimcrack.26 Since the late 1970s the scope of urban geography has expanded rapidly. For some commentators the increased diversity is a source of potential weakness that may lead ultimately to its disintegration. For others, including the present writer, the breadth of perspective strengthens urban geography’s position as an integrative focus for research on the city. Urban geographers have approached the study of the city from a number of philosophical perspectives. While the significance of each for the practice of urban geography has changed over time, none of the main approaches has been abandoned completely, and research informed by all perspectives continues to be undertaken under the umbrella of urban geography. It is important for students of urban geography to be familiar with the different philosophies of science which underlie the subject. To aid this understanding we shall structure our discussion of the changing nature of urban geography with reference to the main epistemological developments in the discipline.
Concepts and theory in urban geography
33
ENVIRONMENTALISM During the first half of the twentieth century the major concerns of urban geography reflected the more general geographical interest in the relationship between people and environment, and in regional description. Early work on urban site and situation, and on the origins and growth of towns, was largely descriptive. One of the first Englishlanguage texts in urban geography comprised a classification and analysis of over 200 towns in terms of their site, situation, relief and climate.27 Despite their simplicity, these investigations provided a foundation for the more conceptually refined practice of urban morphological analysis which continues to illuminate patterns of urban growth and change to the present day.28 At the inter-urban scale, studies of regional patterns of settlement focused attention on the importance of transportation systems.29 Together with the work of land economists,30 this shifted attention from environmental factors towards the economics of location. The economic analysis of cities as points in space was developed most fully in central-place theory.31 At the intra-urban scale, work on urban ecology also moved attention from the environment to human behaviour, and introduced a social dimension to urban geography. Nevertheless, at mid-twentieth century the focus of urban geography was primarily on land use and related issues. The first major ‘paradigm shift’ to affect urban geography reflected a desire to make geographical investigation more scientific. This led to the introduction of the philosophy of positivism. POSITIVISM Positivism is characterised by adherence to the ‘scientific method’ of investigation based on hypothesis testing, statistical inference and theory construction (Box 2.1). Although evident in the work of Christaller (1933) and Losch (1954) on the spatial patterning of BOX 2.1 The assumptions of positivism 1. Events that occur within a society or which involve human decision-making have a determinate cause that is identifiable and verifiable. 2. Decision-making is the result of a set of laws to which individuals conform. 3. There is an objective world comprising individual behaviour and the results of that behaviour which can be observed and recorded in an objective manner on universally agreed criteria. 4. The researcher is a disinterested observer. 5. As in the study of inanimate matter, there is a structure to human society (an organic whole) that changes in determinate ways according to observable laws. 6. Application of the laws and theories of positivist social science can be used to alter societies in determinate ways (social engineering). Source: Adapted from R.Johnston (1983) Philosophy and Human Geography London: Arnold
Urban geography
34
settlements,32 positivism blossomed in urban geography in the late 1950s with the development of the spatial analysis school. The redefinition of urban geography as the science of spatial relationships33 was accompanied by a shift in emphasis away from exceptionalism (the study of the unique and particular) towards a nomothetic approach (aimed at a search for abstract or universal laws). This was aided by the emergence of quantitative analytical techniques fuelled by the ‘quantitative revolution’ in geography of the 1950s and 1960s.34 The new approach led to multivariate classifications of settlement types,35 investigations of the rank-size rule for the populations of urban places,36 and analyses of spatial variations in urban population densities.37 Stimulated by translations of Christaller’s work, urban geographers devoted attention to modelling settlement patterns and the flows of goods and people between places.38 Concepts such as distance decay (the attenuation of a pattern or process over distance) were also introduced in the study of urban phenomena such as consumer behaviour, and trip generation and travel patterns.39 The subsequent expansion of computing power and development of geographical information systems has ensured that modelling and simulation remain a vibrant, if minority, area of urban geography.40 The new methods of spatial science were also applied to analysis of the internal structure of cities. The urban land-use models of the Chicago school of human ecology reflected the positivist philosophy in their proponents’ belief that human behaviour was determined by ecological principles or ‘natural laws’ which stated that the most powerful group would obtain the most advantageous position (e.g. the best residential location) in a given space. During the 1970s the development of a range of multivariate statistical techniques extended the social area approach of the ecologists in the form of factorial ecologies designed to reveal the bases of residential differentiation within the city.41 The positivist spatial science approach was also central to the models of urban structure introduced into geography from neo-classical economics. These were founded on the assumption of Homo economicus or the economic rationality of human behaviour. This stated that individual decisions were based on the goal of utility maximisation—that is, the aim of minimising the costs involved (usually in terms of time and money) and maximising the benefits. For two decades, spatial science was the dominant paradigm in urban geography. However, during the 1970s a growing awareness among geographers of alternative philosophies of science led to strong criticism of positivism: 1. The adequacy of an approach which focused on spatial form to the neglect of underlying causal processes was questioned. It was argued that, since spatial form was largely the outcome of the prevailing social forces, the focus of urban research should switch from the study of spatial relations to the study of social relations. 2. Particular criticism was directed at positivism’s mechanistic view of the role of humankind, and its failure to recognise and account for the idiosyncratic and subjective values that motivate much human behaviour. 3. The science of spatial relations affords no insight into the meaning of urban places to their inhabitants. To explore this sense of place requires an approach that focuses on the daily activities and perceptions of urban residents.
Concepts and theory in urban geography
35
One response to a growing dissatisfaction with positivist science and the poor predictive ability of many spatial models was a move towards direct observation of human behaviour and decision-making. This led to the development of behaviouralism in urban geography.42 BEHAVIOURALISM The behavioural approach sought to overcome the shortcomings of spatial analysis by highlighting the role of cognitive processes and decision-making in mediating the relationship between the urban environment and people’s spatial behaviour. Urban geographers employed cognitive mapping techniques to examine a host of issues, including migration,43 consumer behaviour,44 residential mobility,45 residential preferences, perceived neighbourhood areas and images of the city.46 The behavioural approach introduced greater realism into urban studies, as the emphasis on empirical investigation of human behaviour countered the abstract nature of ‘spatial’ theory. But behaviouralism did not break away wholly from the positivist tradition. Much of the methodology of positivism was retained, and although focused on exposing the values, goals and motivations of human behaviour, it was still concerned with seeking law-like generalisations. As a consequence, behaviouralism has attracted much of the same criticism that has been levelled at positivism, in particular its failure to recognise and account for the ‘untidiness’, ambiguity and dynamism of everyday life. HUMANISM The humanistic approach views the individual as a purposeful agent of change in the city rather than a passive respondent to external stimuli. Although it is acknowledged that people do not act free of constraints, the humanist philosophy accords central importance to human awareness, agency, consciousness and creativity. The aim of a humanistic approach is to understand human social behaviour using methodologies that explore people’s subjective experience of the world. In practice, this means a change from the positivist principles of statistical inference based on representative random samples of the population to the principle of logical inference based on unique case studies using methods such as ethnography and analysis of literary texts to demonstrate ‘the social construction of urban space’.47 The humanistic perspective has been criticised for placing excessive emphasis on the power of individuals to determine their own behaviour in the city, and affording insufficient attention to the constraints on human decision-making. This critique was advanced most forcefully by proponents of structuralism (see below), who regarded the focus on the individual in society as a distortion of a reality in which people’s behaviour is conditioned by forces over which they have little control. STRUCTURALISM Structuralism is a generic term for a set of principles and procedures designed to expose the underlying causes of revealed patterns of human behaviour. In practice this means that explanations for observed phenomena cannot be found through empirical study of the
Urban geography
36
phenomena alone but must be sought by examination of prevailing social, economic and political structures. Structural analysis in urban geography has been based primarily on the work of Marx.48 According to the Marxian or political economy approach, every society is built upon a mode of production—a set of institutional practices by which the society organises its productive activities, provides for its material needs, and reproduces the socio-economic structure. Capitalism is a specific mode of production (others being slavery, feudalism, socialism and communism). Cities are viewed as an integral part of the capitalist mode of production by providing an environment favourable to the fundamental capitalist goal of accumulation. This is the process by which the value of capital is increased through the continual reinvestment of profits from earlier investments. The effect of this expansionary dynamic is most visible in the changing urban land market and, as we shall see later, in processes such as urban redevelopment, gentrification and suburbanisation. The political economy approach entered urban geography in the early 1970s in response to the continuing social problems of urban areas, highlighted in the USA by the civil rights movement. In seeking to uncover the structural forces underlying observed social problems located in the dynamics of the capitalist system, it was argued that: 1. Capitalist society is characterised by conflict between socio-economic groups over the distribution of resources. A key resource is power, most of which is held by an elite who are able to manipulate the majority. 2. Since quantitative spatial analysis describes patterns but fails to reveal underlying causes, any proposals or policies based on this analysis will be supportive of the status quo and unable to lead to progressive social change. Much attention has been directed to the analysis of urban property and housing markets, and studies of residential patterns.49 Notwithstanding the exercise of ‘constrained choice’ by individuals, the political economy approach interpreted urban residential segregation primarily as a result of decisions by those with power in the property market, including building-society managers,50 estate agents51 and local-authority-housing managers.52 Harvey (1976)53 offered an incisive exposition of the relationship between urban residential patterns and the dominant political economy of monopoly capitalism. The dominance assigned to social structure over human agency in the structuralist perspective was rejected by humanistic geographers. Other critics have attacked the emphasis attached to class divisions in society to the neglect of other lines of cleavage such as gender, ethnicity and sexuality, all of which cut across class boundaries and which exert a significant influence on urban lifestyle and the processes of urban restructuring.54 Nevertheless, the political economy approach has had a major impact in urban geography and has provided real insight into the economic and political forces underlying urban change. MANAGERIALISM Doubts over the analytical value of class in modern societies led some writers to abandon Marx’s class-based analysis in favour of Weber’s concept of ‘social closure’—a process by which social groups seek to maximise their benefits by restricting access to resources
Concepts and theory in urban geography
37
and opportunities to a limited circle of ‘eligibles’. (The practice of ‘exclusionary zoning’ of land use in the US city provides a good example.) This perspective on power and conflict in society is closely related to the concept of urban managerialism, which focuses attention on the power of urban managers—professionals and bureaucrats—to influence the socio-spatial structure of cities through their control of, for example, access to public housing, or the allocation of mortgage finance.55 Structuralists are dismissive of managerialism’s focus on intermediate-level decision-makers within a social formation. However, at the interface between consumers and allocators of scarce resources, managerialism introduces a humanistic perspective that can help to expose the operation and rationalities of the distributive process in cities. POSTMODERNISM Postmodern theory began to exert an influence on urban geography in the late 1980s and 1990s. The postmodern perspective is characterised by the rejection of grand theory and an emphasis on human difference. This distances postmodernism from both positivism, with its search for general laws and models, and structuralism, with its base in grand theory relating to the capitalist mode of production. The most visible impact of postmodern thinking on the city is in its architecture, where the ‘concrete functionalism’ of the modern era is replaced by a diversity of styles. In terms of the social geography of the city, the most important contribution of a postmodern perspective is how its focus on difference, uniqueness and individuality sensitises us to the needs and situations of all members of a society. This emphasis on the need to study urban phenomena from the multiple viewpoints of diverse individuals and groups has been reflected in studies of gender differences in urban labour markets,56 as well as of the ‘spaces of exclusion’ occupied by minority groups defined by class,57 marital status,58 sexuality,59 race,60 age61 and disability.62 A major criticism directed at the postmodern approach to the city is its apparently unlimited relativism. Because it privileges the views of all individuals, there appears to be no limit to the range of possible interpretations of any situation—there is, in effect, no ‘real world’.63 This has drawn particular criticism from ‘socially concerned’ urban geographers who decry postmodernism’s inability to address the ‘real’ problems of disadvantaged urban residents. MORAL PHILOSOPHY An approach based on moral philosophy or ethics represents an emergent perspective in urban geography. This seeks to examine critically the moral bases of society. Central to the ethical perspective is the concept of normative judgement that focuses on what should be rather than what is.64 This involves critical evaluation of actual situations against normative conditions as defined by ethical principles. In urban geography, researchers are confronted constantly by ethical issues. Questions addressed include the extent to which there is equity in the distribution of welfare services, employment opportunities and decent housing for different social groups in the city; how to interpret the causes of inner-city poverty (including the relative weight attached to personal deficiencies of the population, or structurally induced constraints on behaviour); and the social acceptability
Urban geography
38
of existing urban conditions—for example, what is an acceptable level of air pollution or of infant mortality? Although moral perspectives on the city formed an important part of social science in the nineteenth century,65 the foundations of the current ethical perspective in urban geography lie in the humanistic approach, in the consideration afforded to issues of social justice within the political economy perspective of the early 1970s,66 and in more recent critiques of the ethics of market-oriented individualism.67 There is also a degree of commonality with the postmodernist emphasis on the importance of difference (seen, for example, in feminist critiques of male-centred interpretations of what constitutes a liveable urban environment).68 Most fundamentally, however, the ethical perspective rejects the post-modernist denial of the possible existence of generally applicable moral bases for societal behaviour. Further, an ethical perspective contends that in a society not all manifestations of ‘otherness’ should be fostered; some (racial discrimination or child prostitution, for example) should be constrained.69 As Smith (1994 p. 294) observed, while acknowledging the importance of ‘difference’ and ‘otherness’, ‘we should not allow uncritical deference to other people’s views and cultures to deny the possibility that some kinds of behaviour, ways of life and even moral codes are wrong’.70 IN SEARCH OF COMMON GROUND Each of the major philosophical perspectives considered can claim to illuminate some part of the complex dynamics and structure of the city. But no single approach provides a full explanation of urban phenomena. The question of whether an accommodation is possible among the different approaches has been polarised between those who accept a pluralist stance—‘agreeing to differ’ on the grounds that there is no single way to gain knowledge—and those who insist on the need to make a unitary choice of theoretical framework due to the perceived superiority of a particular theory of knowledge. Others have sought to combine approaches in different ways.71 The latter route, which incorporates a search for a middle ground between the generalisation of positivism and the exceptionalism of postmodern theory, is the approach favoured here. The analytical value of employing different theoretical perspectives is illustrated in Table 2.3, with reference to the question of urban residential structure. To fully understand urban phenomena in the contemporary world requires consideration of both the general structural processes related to the ‘mode of production’ and an empirically informed appreciation of the particular social formations that emerge from the interaction of structural forces and local context. The importance of employing a combined multi-layered ‘realist’ perspective72 that encompasses the global and local scales, social structure and human agency, and theory and empirical investigation in seeking to interpret the city informs the organisation and content of this book. LEVELS OF ANALYSIS IN URBAN GEOGRAPHY As we have seen, the character of urban environments is the outcome of the interplay of a host of private and public interests operating at a variety of geographical scales. In order
Concepts and theory in urban geography
39
to understand the geography of towns and cities, therefore, it is necessary to look both within and beyond the settlement, and to examine the complex of factors involved in urban change at all levels of the global-local continuum. Although the factors and processes involved in urban development are not confined to any discrete level of the global-local spectrum, the concept of ‘levels of analysis’ offers a useful organising framework which simplifies the complexity of the real world and illustrates some of the issues of concern to urban geography at different spatial scales. We can identify five main levels of analysis. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD The neighbourhood is the area immediately around one’s home; it usually displays some homogeneity in terms of housing type, ethnicity or socio-cultural values. Neighbourhoods may offer a locus for the formation of shared interests and development of community solidarity. Issues of relevance to the urban geographer at this level include the processes of local economic decline or revitalisation, residential segregation, levels of service provision and the use of neighbourhood political organisations as part of the popular struggle to control urban space. THE CITY Cities are centres of economic production and consumption, arenas of social networks and cultural activities, and the seat of government and administration. Urban geographers examine the role of a city in the regional, national and international economy, and how the city’s socio-spatial form is conditioned by its role (for example, as a financial centre or manufacturing base). Study of the distribution of power in the city would focus on the behaviour and biases of formal organisations as well as the informal arrangements by which public and private interests operate to influence government decisions. The differential socio-spatial
TABLE 2.3 ANALYTICAL VALUE OF DIFFERENT THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES IN URBAN GEOGRAPHY: THE EXAMPLE OF URBAN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURE Theoretical perspective
Interpretative insight
Environmentalism
Although the notion of environmental determinism is now discredited, the influence of environmental factors on residential location can be seen in the problems of building in hazardous zones, and in the effects of architectural design on social behaviour (see examples in Chapter 19)
Positivism
Uses statistical analysis of objective social, economic and demographic data (e.g. via factorial ecology) to reveal areas in the city that display similar residential characteristics (see examples in Chapter 18)
Urban geography
40
Behaviouralism
Addresses the key question of why people and households relocate by examining the motives and strategies underlying the intra-urban migration of different social groups (see examples in Chapter 10)
Humanism
Explains how different individuals and social groups interact with their perceived environments, as in the differential use of public and private spaces within a city or residential neighbourhood (see examples in Chapter 19)
Managerialism
Illustrates how urban residential structure is affected by the ability of professional and bureaucratic gatekeepers to control access to resources, such as social housing or mortgage finance (see examples in Chapter 11)
Structuralism
Examines the ways in which political and economic forces and actors (e.g. financial institutions, property speculators and estate agents) influence the residential structure of a city through their activities in urban land and housing markets (see examples in Chapter 7)
Postmodernism
Explores the place of different social groups in the residential mosaic of the city by focusing on the particular lifestyles and residential experiences of various populations, such as ethnic minorities, affluent groups, gays, the elderly, disabled, and the poor (see examples in Chapter 18)
Moral philosophy
Critically evaluates the ethical underpinnings of issues such as homelessness or the incidence of slums and squatter settlements (see examples in Chapter 25)
distribution of benefits and disbenefits in the city is also an important area of investigation in urban geography. THE REGION The spread of urban influences into surrounding rural areas and, in particular, the spatial expansion of cities have introduced concepts such as urban region, metropolis, metroplex, conurbation and megalopolis into urban geography. Issues appropriate to this level of analysis include the ecological footprint of the city, land-use conflict on the urban fringe, growth management strategies and forms of metropolitan governance. THE NATIONAL SYSTEM OF CITIES Cities are affected by nationally defined goals established in pursuit of objectives that extend beyond urban concerns. Successive New Right governments in the UK (under Margaret Thatcher and John Major) and the USA (under Ronald Reagan and George Bush) followed an economic policy that focused on national economic development largely irrespective of its consequences for the growth or decline of individual urban areas. Cities were encouraged to become more competitive to attract inward investment. National-level policy guidelines, incentives in the shape of competitive grants, and financial and other controls over the actions of local government have a direct influence on urban decision-making and management. In order to comprehend processes and patterns of urban change, geographers need to have an understanding of national policy and the ways in which it affects the inter- and intra-urban geography of the state.
Concepts and theory in urban geography
41
THE WORLD SYSTEM OF CITIES The concept of a world system of cities reflects the growing interdependence of nations and cities within the global political economy. In this urban system, ‘world cities’ occupy a distinctive niche owing to their role as political and financial control centres. This status is evident in the concentration of advanced producer services such as education, R&D, banking and insurance, accounting, legal services, advertising and real estate services. Drawing on a ‘world cities’ perspective enables the urban geographer to reframe many urban questions previously defined in the context of the city or regional boundaries. This is illustrated graphically by the way in which investment decisions by managers in a Japanese-owned multinational company with head-quarters in New York can lead to job losses and deprivation at the neighbourhood level in Liverpool or Lagos. In studying the contemporary city, urban geographers must remain aware of the relationship between global and local forces in the production and re-production of urban environments. The need for such a perspective is reinforced by the process of globalisation, which, as we have seen, emphasises the linkages between different ‘levels of analysis’. In particular, the global and the local must be regarded not as analytical opposites but as two sides of the same coin. The process of globalisation underscores the need for urban geographers to employ a multilevel interdisciplinary perspective in the search for urban explanation. FURTHER READING BOOKS K.Cox and R.Golledge (1981) Behavioural Problems in Geography Revisited London: Methuen D.Gregory and J.Urry (1985) Social Relations and Spatial Structures London: Macmillan. D.Harvey (1973) Social Justice and the City London: Arnold D.Harvey (1985) The Urbanisation of Capital Oxford: Blackwell D.Herbert and R.Johnston (1978) Geography and the urban environment, in D.Herbert and R.Johnston (eds) Geography and the Urban Environment volume 1 Chichester: Wiley, 1–33 D.Ley and M.Samuels (1978) Humanistic Geography London: Croom Helm S.A.Marston, B.Towers, M.Cadwallader and A.Kirby (1989) The urban problematic, in G.Gaile and C. Willmott (eds) Geography in America Columbus, OH: Merrill, 651–72 R.Pahl (1965) Urbs in Rure London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson R.Peet (1998) Modern Geographical Thought Oxford: Blackwell
JOURNAL ARTICLES A.Amin and S.Graham (1997) The ordinary city Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 22, 411–29 B.Berry (1964) Cities as systems within systems of cities Papers and Proceedings of the Regional Science Association 13, 147–63 M.Dear and S.Flusty (1998) Postmodern urbanism Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88(1), 50–72 M.Gottdeiner (2000) Lefebvre and the bias of academic urbanism City 4(1), 93–100 F.Schaefer (1953) Exceptionalism in geography: a methodological examination Annals of the Association of American Geographers 43, 226–49
Urban geography
42
D.Walmsley (2000) Community, place and cyberspace Australian Geographer 31(1), 5–19 L.Wirth (1938) Urbanism as a way of life American Journal of Sociology 44, 1–24
KEY CONCEPTS ■ meaning of urban ■ urbanisation ■ urbanism ■ rural-urban continuum ■ space and place ■ cyberspace ■ social processes ■ spatial processes ■ environmentalism ■ positivism ■ behaviouralism ■ humanism ■ structuralism ■ managerialism ■ postmodernism ■ moral philosophy ■ levels of analysis
STUDY QUESTIONS 1. What do you understand by the term ‘urban’? 2. Consider the value of an urban geographical perspective for understanding contemporary towns and cities. 3. With the aid of relevant examples, identify the concerns of the urban geographer at different levels of the global-local spectrum. 4. Dr Johnston (1709–84) said, ‘When a man is tired of London he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford’, yet Shelley (1792–1822) thought that ‘Hell is a city much like London’. Make a list of the positive and negative features of urban life. 5. Select any one of the major theoretical perspectives (such as positivism, structuralism or postmodernism) and write a reasoned critique of its value for the study of urban geography.
Concepts and theory in urban geography
43
PROJECT Select a major academic journal dealing with urban issues (e.g. Urban Studies or Urban Geography) and undertake a content analysis over a period of time to illustrate the changing focus of the subject. For each of the journal issues sampled you should classify the papers by their main theme. This information can then be tabulated and/or graphed to indicate the percentage coverage of different themes and hence the changing emphasis of urban geography over time. You should expect to find some enduring issues, some that decline in importance, as well as new entries to the field.
PART TWO An Urbanising World
3 The Origins and Growth of Cities Preview: pre-industrial cities; theories of urban origin; hydraulic theory; economic theory; military theories; religious theories; early urban hearths; the spread of urban ism; the Dark Ages and urban revival in Western Europe; the medieval town; early modern urbanism; industrial urbanism; the form of the industrial city; residential segregation; the origins of urban USA; the westward progress of urbanism in the USA; post-industrial urbanism; the post-industrial/postmodern city.
INTRODUCTION Three major transformations have altered the course of human life. The first was the revolution that led to the development of agriculture around 7000 BC and the growth of Neolithic farming settlements such as Jarmo in Iraq and Jericho in modern Israel. The second was the pre-industrial revolution that brought cities into being. The third was the industrial revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that created the urban industrial forerunners of our present cities. This chapter begins by focusing on the preindustrial revolution to examine the origins and development of the earliest urban settlements, before going on to consider the character of industrial and post-industrial cities. PRECONDITIONS FOR URBAN GROWTH In Chapter 2 we saw how problematic the definition of a city can be. With reference to the pre-industrial city, Wheatley (1971 p. xviii)1 defined urbanism as ‘that particular set of functionally integrated institutions which were first devised some 5,000 years ago to mediate the transformation of relatively egalitarian, ascriptive, kin-structured groups into socially stratified politically organised, territorially based societies’. This emphasis on institutional change relates the growth of cities to a major socio-political restructuring of society, which he regards as a key element in the development of civilisation. In similar vein, Childe (1950)2 provides a listing of ten characteristics of an urban civilisation. These may be separated into five primary characteristics referring to fundamental changes in the organisation of society and five secondary features indicative of the presence of the primary factors (Box 3.1). Thus, for example, a community that was
The origins and growth of cities
47
capable of building monumental public works probably had not only the craft specialists to undertake the task but also sufficient surplus to support the work. It is important to recognise that these advances in social organisation occurred in particular environmental settings. The combination of environmental and social forces underlying early urban development is encapsulated in Duncan’s (1961)3 ecological perspective, which emphasises how external (environmental) stimuli and internal (social) interrelationships operated together to promote the growth of cities in the pre-industrial era (Box 3.2). With these preliminary observations in mind, we can consider a number of different theories advanced to explain the origins of urban society. In doing so we should note that, as in much social science, it is not a question of whether one hypothesis is correct and the others wrong. Rather, each contributes some insight on the rise of cities. BOX 3.1 Childe’s ten characteristics of an urban civilisation Primary characteristics 1. Size and density of cities. The great enlargement of an organised population meant a much wider level of social integration. 2. Full-time specialisation of labour. Specialisation of production among workers was institutionalised, as were systems of distribution and exchange. 3. Concentration of surplus. There were social means for the collection and management of the surplus production of farmers and artisans. 4. Class-structured society. A privileged ruling class of religious, political and military functionaries organised and directed the society. 5. State organisation. There was a well-structured political organisation with membership based on residence. This replaced political identification based on kinship. Secondary characteristics 6. Monumental public works. There were collective enterprises in the form of temples, palaces, storehouses and irrigation systems. 7. Long-distance trade. Specialisation and exchange were expanded beyond the city in the development of trade. 8. Standardised, monumental artwork. Highly developed art forms gave expression to symbolic identification and aesthetic enjoyment. 9. Writing. The art of writing facilitated the processes of social organisation and management. 10. Arithmetic geometry and astronomy. Exact, predictive science and engineering were initiated.
Urban geography
48
BOX 3.2 Pre-conditions for pre-industrial urban growth Population The presence of a population of certain size residing permanently in one place is a fundamental requirement. The environment, level of technology and social organisation all set limits on how large such a population would grow. Particularly important was the extent to which the agricultural base created a food surplus to sustain an urban population. The earliest cities were relatively small in modern terms, with few exceeding 25,000 inhabitants. Environment The key influence of the environment, including topography, climate, social conditions and natural resources on early urban growth is illustrated by the location of the earliest Middle Eastern cities on the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates, which provided a water supply, fish and fertile soils that could be cultivated with simple technology. Technology In addition to the development of agricultural skills, a major challenge for the early urban societies of the Middle East was to develop a technology for river management to exploit the benefits of water and minimise the risk of flooding. Social organisation The growth of population and trade demanded a more complex organisational structure including a political, economic and social infrastructure, a bureaucracy and leadership, accompanied by social stratification. Source: Adapted from O.Duncan (1961) From social system to ecosystem Sociological Inquiry 31, 140–9
THEORIES OF URBAN ORIGINS HYDRAULIC THEORY The importance of irrigation for urban development, especially in the semi-arid climates of the Middle East where the agricultural revolution took place, was identified by Wittfogel (1957),4 who argued that the need for large-scale water management required centralised co-ordination and direction, which in turn required concentrated settlement. The principal characteristics of a ‘hydraulic society’ are that it: 1. permits an intensification of agriculture; 2. involves a particular division of labour; 3. necessitates co-operation on a large scale.
The origins and growth of cities
49
As Box 3.2 indicates, these are reflected in Duncan’s (1961) preconditions for urban growth. Agricultural intensification allows a concentration of population, while cooperation leads to a need for managers and bureaucrats. Those who control the water resources (whether a temple elite or secular state) exert power over others (e.g. farmers). The division of labour, centralisation of power and administrative structure all promote concentrated settlement, and hence the emergence of a town. As well as in the Middle East, evidence of a relationship between the adoption of irrigation and rapid population growth, nucleation, monument construction, intense social stratification and expansionist warfare has also been found at Teotihuacán in Mexico, which was the site of a preindustrial city of 70,000–125,000 inhabitants. There is now little doubt that irrigation was a key factor in the growth of pre-industrial cities in the ancient world. The problem lies in disentangling cause and effect. This is particularly difficult if one is seeking to support the belief that urbanisation followed upon the development of irrigation. A more likely scenario is that the institutions of centralised urban government and large-scale irrigation grew side by side. At first, smallscale irrigation schemes would have required a certain amount of administration, which would have expanded the irrigation system. This in turn would have required greater administration and so on, eventually leading to large-scale irrigation works and an urban political organisation with a monopoly of power. ECONOMIC THEORY Several theorists have suggested that the development of complex large-scale trading networks stimulated the growth of urban society5 Certainly, the fact that southern Mesopotamia did not have many raw materials such as metallic ores, timber, building stone or stone for tools made trade essential. This required an administrative organisation to control the procurement, production and distribution of goods. Such an organisation would have been a powerful agent in the community, and its power may well have extended beyond trade into other aspects of society. The need to increase production for trade purposes as well as to feed an expanding population would have led to continued specialisation and intensification, and the growing sedentary population would itself constitute a market for local produce and trade goods. Once again, however, it is unclear whether trade was a cause of city growth or the product of an already existing urban administrative elite. MILITARY THEORIES Some theorists suggest that the origin of cities lay in the need for people to gather together for protection against an external threat, the initial agglomeration leading to subsequent urban expansion. The excavation of a massive defensive wall built on bedrock would appear to indicate the defensive origins of Jericho, but not all early towns have such defences. Wheatley (1971)6 believed that warfare may have contributed to the intensification of urban development in some places by inducing a concentration of population for defensive purposes and by stimulating craft specialisation.
Urban geography
50
RELIGIOUS THEORIES Religious theories focus on the importance of a well-developed power structure for the formation and perpetuation of urban places and, in particular, how power was appropriated into the hands of a religious elite who controlled the disposal of surplus produce provided as offerings.7 There is clear evidence of shrines and temples in ancient urban sites and there can be little doubt that religion played a significant part in the process of social transformation that created cities. However, it is unlikely to have been the sole factor. THEORETICAL CONSENSUS? It is doubtful if a single autonomous, causative factor will ever be identified in the nexus of social, economic and political transformations that resulted in the emergence of urban forms of living. A more realistic interpretation is generated if the concept of an ‘urban revolution’ is replaced by the idea of an urban transformation involving a host of factors operating over a long period of time. As Redman (1978 p. 229)8 explained: urbanisation was not a linear arrangement in which one factor caused a change in a second factor, which then caused a change in a third, and so on. Rather, the rise of civilisation should be conceptualised as a series of interacting incremental processes that were triggered by favourable ecological and cultural conditions and that continued to develop through mutually reinforcing interactions. This approach represents a significant departure from monocausal views on the origin of cities. Its value lies in exposing the key roles of social stratification and individual and group decision-making underlying the complex reality of the transformation from nomadic life to settled urban life in the ancient world. For urban geographers, this poses the particular question of where such developments occurred. EARLY URBAN HEARTHS As Figure 3.1 illustrates, there is evidence of early city growth in four areas of the Old World and one area of the New World: 1. Mesopotamia. The first cities are thought to have begun around 3500BC in lower Mesopotamia (Sumer) around the Tigris and Euphrates
The origins and growth of cities
51
Figure 3.1 Early urban hearths rivers (Figure 3.2). One of the earliest cities was Ur, which from 2300 BC to 2180BC was the capital city of the Sumerian Empire, which extended north along the Fertile Crescent, possibly as far as the Mediterranean. In 1885BC Ur and the other southern cities were conquered by the Babylonians9 (Box 3.3). 2. Egypt. There is a long-standing debate in archaeology over theories of urban diffusion or independent invention but it is most probable that agricultural and other technologies, possibly including city-building, spread along the Fertile Crescent, then south-west into the Nile valley. By 3500BC a number of the Neolithic farm hamlets along the lower Nile had risen to ‘overgrown village’ status and were clustered into several politically independent units, each containing large co-operative irrigation projects. The transition from settled agricultural communities to cities occurred around 3300 BC when the lower Nile was unified under the first pharaoh, Menes. The early Egyptian cities were not as large or as densely settled as those of Mesopotamia because: ■ The early dynastic practice of changing the site of the capital, normally the largest settlement, with the ascendancy of a new pharaoh limited the growth opportunity of any single city. ■ The security provided by extensive desert on both sides of the Nile meant that once the valley was unified politically, Egyptian cities, unlike those of Mesopotamia, did not require elaborate fortifications and garrisoned troops for protection.
Urban geography
52
Figure 3.2 The Fertile Crescent and ancient cities of the Middle East BOX 3.3 Ur of the Chaldees The city of 2000BC was surrounded by a wall 26ft (8m) in height which enclosed an area of 89 acres (36 ha) and a maximum population of 35,000. The walled city was an irregular oval shape, about three-quarters of a mile (1.2km) long by half a mile (0.8km) wide. It stood on a mound formed by the ruins of previous buildings, with the River Euphrates flowing along the western side and a navigable canal to the north and east.
The harbours to the north and west provided protected anchorages (A and B in the plan) The temenos or religious precinct occupied much of the north western quarter of
The origins and growth of cities
53
the city (C in the plan). The remainder of the city within the walls was densely built up as residential quarters (D in the plan), with two-storey houses of burnt brick below and mud brick above, with plaster and whitewash concealing the change in material. House size and ground plan varied according to the space available and the owner’s means, but generally rooms were arranged around a central paved courtyard that gave light and air to the house. A processional avenue (X–Y in the plan) possibly ran straight through to the temenos. Including those resident outside the walls, a figure of 250,000 has been estimated for the total population of the city-state. Source: A.Morris (1994) History of Urban Form Harlow: Longman
Plate 3.1 The pyramid at Chichen Itza in Mexico functioned as a solar calendar for the Mayan civilisation that flourished in Meso-America and the Yucatan between 300 BC and AD 1300 3. The Indus valley. The Harappa civilisation appeared around 2500 BC in the Indus valley in what is now Pakistan. It was distinguished by twin capital cities, a northern one of Harappa in the Punjab and Mohenjo-daro, 350 miles down-river. The planned layout of each city was in marked contrast to the organic growth of Mesopotamian cities such as Ur. Both cities were laid out on a gridiron pattern with wide, straight streets forming 1,200 ft×800 ft (370 m×240 m) rectangular blocks. Socio-spatial segregation was common, with blocks or precincts occupied by a specific group such as potters, weavers, metalworkers and the elite. Each city covered approximately one square mile in area (640 acres/250 ha) and accommodated 20,000 people.
Urban geography
54
The Harappa kingdom was ruled from the twin capitals by a single ‘priest-king’ who wielded absolute power. There is some evidence of trade with the Sumerian city-states by 2000 BC but the unchanging material culture and still undeciphered written language suggests that, in contrast to the cities of the Nile valley, the Harappa culture and cities emerged independently. Following a thousand years of stability, the Harappa civilisation was destroyed by invaders around 1500BC. 4. The Yellow River. The valley of the Huangho (Yellow River) was the birthplace of the Shang civilisation that arose around 1800BC. The most significant feature is that individual cities, such as An-Yang, were linked into a network of agricultural villages; a town wall did not separate an urban subculture from a rural one.10 This form of ‘urban region’ is without precedent in the early civilisations of Mesopotamia, the Nile and the Indus. 5. Mesoamerica. The earliest cities in the New World appeared around 200 BC—in southern Mexico (Yucatan), Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. Thus Mesoamerican peoples were entering a stage of development equivalent to the Neolithic of the Old World at a time when Mesopotamian cities had been in existence for 2,000 years. Of the several civilisations that evolved in Mesoamerica, the Mayan, which flourished between AD 300 and AD 1000, was the most culturally advanced. Cities such as Tikal, Vaxactum and Mayapán were centres of small states ruled by a leader drawn from a priest-hood and organised into a loose confederation. Society was highly stratified, with the elite occupying central city land around the palaces and temples, and the lower classes the urban periphery. Although the debate over urban diffusion or independent origin remains unresolved, identification of a number of common features among early urban societies encouraged Sjoberg (1960) to propose a model of the socio-spatial structure of the pre-industrial city11 (Box 3.4). THE SPREAD OF URBANISM By 800 BC cities such as Athens, Sparta and Megara had arisen on the Greek mainland. Greek cities subsequently spread to other parts of the Mediterranean and along the Black Sea coast. The Greek urban diaspora was a direct response to population pressure and the poor agricultural base available to the mainland cities. Individual cities equipped expeditions to establish new cities. A first wave beginning around 750 BC led to settlements on the coast of the Ionian Sea, in Sicily and in southern Italy (e.g. Ephesus, Syracuse and Naples), with a second wave spreading east to reach the Black Sea by 650BC. A significant feature of Greek urban colonisation was that in contrast to the organic layout of mainland cities like Athens, the new independent cities frequently adopted a gridiron plan, irrespective of the topography of a site. The expansion of the Roman Empire, following the defeat of Carthage in the Punic Wars (264–146 BC), carried the practice of city-building, and in particular the gridiron plan, into Western Europe. In Britain, prior to the Roman conquest in 55 BC, systematic town-planning was unknown. Figure 3.3 shows the typical form of a Roman imperial urban settlement. The town perimeter was usually square or rectangular. Within it there were two main cross-streets, the east-west decumanus through the centre of the town, and
The origins and growth of cities
55
the north-south cardo, usually bisecting the decumanus towards one end. Secondary streets completed the grid layout to form the insulae or building blocks. The forum (equivalent to the Greek agora) was typically located in one of the angles formed by the intersection of the two
Figure 3.3 Typical form of a Roman imperial settlement and a generalised example from Roman Britain Source: A.Morris (1994) History of Urban Form Harlow: Longman
Urban geography
56
BOX 3.4 A model of the pre-industrial city
Sjoberg’s model attempts to identify some common cross-cultural features of the preindustrial city. Like all models claiming a wide range of application, this model of a generic pre-industrial city has been criticised for oversimplification and overextension. Sjoberg’s model is most appropriate in cities where domination by an elite occurred. He identifies three social groups with social boundaries rigidly defined and often formally codified. The class pyramid was translated into a distinct spatial pattern. The elite occupied the central district around the ceremonial and symbolic institutions, including the religious, educational and political structures. Interspersed within the inner core were the servants of the elite, but the major concentration of lower-class residences was in a zone outside the core. The outcasts were relegated to the periphery, completing the spatial gradation of social status. Within each of the zones further differentiation occurred by occupation or ethnicity; however, there was limited segregation of distinct land-use functions. This generalisation has been questioned by Vance,12 who gives greater emphasis to the pattern of occupational subdistricts and downplays the extent of a zone of lower-class labourers, placing them instead as lodgers scattered within the various subdistricts. Notwithstanding differences of detail, both Sjoberg and Vance depict a walking-scale city with a general social degradation from core to periphery. Despite its simple structure, at a general level the Sjoberg model continues to serve as a useful standard against which individual cities may be assessed. For example, while Langton13 found limited correspondence between the model and the social geography of seventeenth-century Newcastle upon Tyne, Radford14 revealed a close relationship between the model’s description of pre-industrial urban society and the situation in the ante-bellum city of Charleston SC. Source: After G.Sjoberg (1960) The Pre-industrial City New York: Free Press
The origins and growth of cities
57
principal streets and normally comprised a colonnaded courtyard with a meeting hall built across one end. The main temple, the theatre and the public baths were also located near the forum. Venta Silurum, a Romano-British town on the western military frontier in Wales, is a good example of Roman town planning15 (Box 3.5). Many of the great modern cities of Europe can trace their urban beginnings to Roman influence, including London, Brussels, Seville, Cologne, Paris, Vienna and Belgrade. With the fall of the Roman Empire in the fourth century AD, Muslim control of the Mediterranean trade routes during the seventh and eighth BOX 3.5 Plan of Venta Silurum (Caerwent)
The town dates from AD75 and was founded to replace a tribal hill fort situated on high ground a mile to the north-west. The settlement covered an area of 44 acres (18 ha) and typically was divided in two by the main east-west street that was lined with shops and ran between the two main gates. Two other streets running east-west and four running north-south divided the town into twenty blocks. In a north-south direction there is not one dominant street line but two, each leading to a gate in the defences in a manner typical of a military settlement. centuries and increasing Viking raids from the north in the ninth century, much of Europe entered a Dark Age of economic and cultural stagnation. Under such unsettled conditions long-distance trade of any significance was impossible, towns became isolated and inward-looking, and urban life in Western Europe declined to its nadir by the end of the ninth century.
Urban geography
58
URBAN REVIVAL IN WESTERN EUROPE During the tenth century, the reopening of long-distance trade routes and the presence of urban nuclei represented by fortified settlements and ecclesiastical centres stimulated the beginnings of a commercial revival. But the rebirth of urbanism was hindered by the social and economic constraints inherent in the dominant social system of feudalism. Feudalism was a form of social organisation (or mode of production) characterised by the interrelationship of two social groups. Direct producers (peasants working the land) were subject to politico-legal domination by social superiors (feudal lords) who formed a status hierarchy headed by the monarch. Social relations under feudalism are not defined primarily through market interactions (as under capitalism) but are legally defined, and the whole society was organised in terms of a formal and rigid hierarchy of power and dominance. A key feature of the manorial (estate-based) system of economic organisation prevalent in medieval feudalism was the focus on self-sufficiency and local markets. This restricted innovation and commercial expansion. In addition, since the amount of surplus value extracted by feudal lords in rents and taxes was dependent less on market forces than on their expenditure requirements (which increased as they competed for political status through conspicuous consumption), there was insufficient reinvestment in the productive capacity of agriculture and industry.16 The regrowth of towns in Europe coincided with the decline of the feudal system and was related to the increasing economic and political power of an emerging middle class of merBOX 3.6 The merchant class and urban growth in medieval Europe During the centuries of the Dark Ages an economy based on exchange was replaced by an economy of consumption. But a new merchant class was appearing on the edge of feudal society. Probably originating among landless men, escaped serfs, casual harvest labourers, beggars and outlaws, the bold and resourceful among them—the fast talkers, quick with languages, ready to fight or cheat—became chapmen or pedlars, carrying their wares to remote hamlets. They were paid in pennies and farthings and in portable local products, such as beeswax, rabbit fur, goose quills and the sheepskins for making parchment. If they prospered, they could settle in a centre and hire others to tramp the forest paths. The merchants made the towns. They needed walls and wall builders, warehouses and guards, artisans to manufacture their trade goods, cask makers, cart builders, smiths, shipwrights and sailors, soldiers and muleteers. They needed farmers and herdsmen outside the walls to feed them; and bakers, brewers and butchers within. They bought the privilege of self-government, substituting a money economy for one based on land, and thus were likely to oppose the local lord and become supporters of his distant superior, the king. Towns recruited manpower by offering freedom to any serf who would live within their walls for a year and a day. Source: M.Bishop (1971) The Penguin Book of the Middle Ages Harmondsworth: Penguin
The origins and growth of cities
59
chants opposed to the economic regulation of their activities by feudal lords (Box 3.6). The urban bourgeoisie of merchants, manufacturers and financiers, often organised into guilds, obtained certain freedoms, notably the right to supervise their own markets. Successful towns obtained charters from the king and, in England, were known as boroughs. In the more urbanised parts of Europe many towns such as Milan, Florence, Cologne and Bruges were able to become self-governing municipalities (communes) capable of independent political action. In northern Italy a fiercely competitive society of rival city-states had emerged by the thirteenth century (providing a foundation for the Italian Renaissance). The economic and political freedoms obtained by the emerging class of burgesses (free merchants and craftsmen) was of central importance in the rise of European urban society and the corresponding decline of medieval feudalism. As the power of the urban bourgeoisie increased, the goal of the economy became expansion and economic profit the function of city growth. THE MEDIEVAL TOWN The power of commerce and trade in medieval urbanism is exemplified in the German city of Lübeck, founded in 1159 by the Duke of Saxony in order to attract merchants from neighbouring lands. Situated at the western edge of the Baltic Sea, Lübeck developed into the nucleus of a German Baltic trading system organised by a confederation of towns known as the Hanseatic League that included Hamburg, Lüneberg, Cologne, Danzig and Riga. Development of regular trade with the Russian city of Novgorod brought furs and forest products, which, along with local salt for preserving fish and meat, were distributed throughout northern Europe in exchange for cloth and other manufactures. The wealth and power acquired by the merchant elite enabled them to govern Lübeck and the other Hanse cities. Within Lübeck the central importance of trade and commerce was reflected in the urban structure (Figure 3.4). The town had a medieval cathedral and monasteries, but it was dominated by the central marketplace. This consisted of the shops of a range of specialist merchants and craftsmen concentrated together in their own areas (e.g. a street of bakers, spice merchants or tailors), with living quarters located above the shop. A mint, the new urban engine of the medieval money economy, was located close to the marketplace. Despite the central importance of commerce, the medieval town did not sever links with the surrounding area but enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with the countryside. In particular, medieval towns, with their poor hygiene and higher mortality, grew only because of the influx of rural immigrants seeking employment and economic opportunity. Many cities, such as Venice and Nuremberg, annexed large areas of their surrounding lands to guarantee food supplies (a rural-urban symbiosis that remains common in modern China).
Urban geography
60
Figure 3.4 The urban structure of medieval Lübeck In addition to the commercial function, the main characteristic of the European medieval city that distinguished it as a separate entity was its legal status, which afforded citizens privileges denied to rural dwellers. The dictum that ‘town air makes free’ was a powerful attraction for the rural peasantry and a major force for urban growth. The same privileges did not extend to medieval towns elsewhere. The city of Novgorod, despite its prosperity, was not politically autonomous. Neither were urban freedoms possessed by other important non-European medieval towns such as Baghdad, Delhi or Beijing. Only in the medieval West did cities acquire this special legal status.17 More generally, the new force of capitalism pushed aside the vestiges of feudalism, ushered in the industrial revolution, and paved the way for the emergence of the industrial city. THE PRECONDITIONS FOR INDUSTRIAL URBANISM The complex series of innovations commonly referred to as the industrial revolution emerged in Britain from the mid-eighteenth century onwards, spreading from there to the European mainland and ultimately to other parts of the world during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.18 The industrial revolution is typically thought of in terms of technology the invention of complex machines and use of inanimate energy sources that
The origins and growth of cities
61
greatly increased worker productivity—but important cultural, social and population changes were also involved. It is important to understand these and their effects on the form of the city. For Weber (1958),19 a fundamental change in Western cultural values was a prerequisite for the industrial revolution. Central to this was the concept of profit. In medieval Europe, profit was an alien concept among artisans: the price of a product was fixed by adding to the cost of materials the fair value of one’s labour. In the absence of profit (defined as the excess of the selling price of goods over their cost) there could be no large capital accumulation to invest in the development of industrial society. This change in social outlook was stimulated by the Protestant Reformation, which fostered a new set of values that stressed rationality in interpersonal relations, including trade, hard work and the right to the material rewards of one’s labour. This ‘work ethic’, which originated in northern Europe in the sixteenth century, spread throughout Western society and in Weber’s view represented a prime precondition for the industrial revolution, the development of capitalist society and the emergence of the industrial city, the
Plate 3.2 The oval-shaped Renaissance-period Piazza San Pietro in Rome, constructed by Bernini in 1656 to symbolise the allembracing power of the Church, is a potent expression of the link between architecture and ideology foundations of which were laid in the early modern period.
Urban geography
62
EARLY MODERN URBANISM In the early modern (post-medieval, pre-industrial) period, from 1500 to 1800, the economic and political powers of the European medieval city were usurped by the expansion of nation-states. Despite this relative decline in urban autonomy, however, the period witnessed increasing levels of urbanisation and the gradual emergence of an urban system in Europe.20 During the early modern period urban development in Europe was characterised by cycles of growth and decline. Three main phases may be identified: 1. The ‘long sixteenth century’, from 1500 to 1650, was a period of general prosperity during which urban growth was widely distributed. 2. From 1650 to 1750 population growth slowed in response to war, plague and famines combined with cyclical downturn in the economy as a result of rising labour costs, falling rent incomes from property and technological stagnation. Urban growth occurred differentially. Cities that were centres of state government (such as Madrid) and port cities engaged in Atlantic trade (such as Amsterdam) experienced growth. By contrast the majority of inland trading centres, ecclesiastical seats and industrial towns suffered at least a relative loss of standing. A net result was a more hierarchical size distribution of urban places. 3. The period of ‘new urbanisation’ between 1750 and 1800 witnessed the growth of smaller cities and the addition of new cities to the urban system. This process was related to the political economy of proto-industrial production that formed as urban and rural-based precursors of factory-based manufacturing industry.21 Widespread urban growth was stimulated by increases in agricultural production and incomes that promoted the growth of regional marketing, administrative and commercial centres. Many small cities with resource-based industries such as metallurgy grew as a consequence of technological innovation, and many rural places that had developed with proto-industrial textile production emerged to become industrial towns as technological change encouraged factory organisation. By the end of the early modern period the twin processes of proto-industrialisation and urbanisation had paved the way for the emergence of industrial urbanism.
THE FORM OF THE INDUSTRIAL CITY The nineteenth century witnessed the flowering of industrial capitalism in Western Europe and the rapid growth of the European industrial city. A major driving force was the factory system with its economies of scale, increased productivity and higher levels of output. The need for a large pool of labour as well as ancillary services and markets for their products encouraged factories to cluster together in towns. Successful towns attracted further economic activity that drew in more migrants in search of work in a cumulative process of growth (Box 3.7). Town populations grew apace. By 1800 London was the largest city in the world, with a population of over 900,000. The population of Birmingham increased by 273 per cent between 1801 and 1851 from 71,000 to 265,000, Manchester grew from 75,000 in 1801 to 338,000 in 1851 (a growth of 351 per cent) and Glasgow from 84,000 to 350,000 over the same period (an increase of 317 per cent). Lawton (1972)22 estimated that almost all the 27 million increase in the British
The origins and growth of cities
63
population between 1801 and 1911 was absorbed by urban areas. In many of the great nineteenth-century industrial cities, wealth found civic expression in monumental public buildings and cultural institutions. Industrial capitalism also brought a major realignment of social structures with the creation of two main classes: 1. capitalists, who invested in labour with the goal of realising a profit; 2. labour, that sold its skills to the owner of capital in return for a wage. The unequal division of power between the two main classes had a direct effect on the form of the industrial city, which was developed primarily to fulfil the needs of capital. This was particularly evident in the socio-spatial segregation of the classes BOX 3.7 The circular and cumulative model of urban growth
The urban economy may be viewed as being made up of two interrelated sectors: 1. the basic sector, comprising activities that produce goods and services sold outside the city to obtain the means needed to purchase imports (e.g. manufactures); 2. the non-basic sector, comprising activities that provide goods and services for the city itself (e.g. retailing). The two sectors are functionally interdependent. Thus, if the basic sector expands, workers in that sector will spend more on services available in the city, creating growth in the non-basic sector. The extent of growth will depend on the respective sizes of the two sectors. In a city with a basic: non-basic ratio of 1:4 an increase of 1000 in basic employment will lead to an increase of 5,000 (1,000+ 4,000) in total employment. This is referred to as the urban economic multiplier and is a key concept in the economic explanation of urban growth In practice given the variety of economic activity in any
Urban geography
64
city, the mechanisms of growth are highly complex. These are best seen as a circular and cumulative process whereby growth in one sector triggers expansion through secondary multiplier effects elsewhere in the economy. Consider a situation in which the output of a company manufacturing computer chips expands in response to increased demand. Company profits and employees’ wages will rise and expenditure by shareholders and workers will increase, leading to growth of tertiary activities (such as existing and new shopping and retail activities). The company may decide to move to larger premises, which generates growth in the construction industry. It may also take on additional workers, leading to in-migration, and new housebuilding and urban growth. These changes in the non-basic sector can act as a secondary multiplier effect, lifting the city to a new threshold comprising a larger market that promotes newer forms of manufacturing and service activities. The company research and development team may invent an even-faster computer chip, expanding demand for the company’s product and leading to a further round of growth. The interaction between the basic and non-basic sectors of the urban economy and combination of multiplier effects promotes urban growth. Conversely, the opposite situation may also occur, leading to economic stagnation and urban decline.
Figure 3.5 Burgess’s model of the industrial city (Figure 3.5). The burgeoning populations of the nineteenth-century industrial cities placed an enormous strain on urban services and infrastructure. Public sanitation and water supplies were inadequate and often non-existent in the slums. Mid-century London had 200,000 undrained cesspools, and the River Thames was virtually an open sewer. Similar conditions existed in other large industrial cities and it is no surprise that cholera and typhoid were rife, especially, though not exclusively, among the poor. A cholera epidemic in 1832 claimed the lives of 5,000 Londoners. In the same year cholera killed
The origins and growth of cities
65
2,800 in Glasgow. The wealthy, with their power to exercise choice, sought to maintain a healthy separation from the masses. RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION Several processes underlay the pattern of residential segregation in the Victorian city. First, in terms of the physical growth of the city and the evolution of housing areas, much of the house building was undertaken by speculative builders, who were rarely interested in building for the lower end of the market. As a result, the demand for cheap housing remained high, especially following the influx of migrants from the Irish famine in the mid-nineteenth century. This demand was met by multiple occupancy, leading to overcrowded conditions in the central slum areas of most cities. The development of new middle- and high-status housing on the urban periphery by speculative builders allowed vacated inner-city properties to filter down to poorer families. Second, the development of residential segregation was a result of individual locational decisions within the context of a rapidly expanding urban population. Few urban dwellers remained in the same house for long in the nineteenth century, and both migrants and established residents would have been continually re-evaluating the suitability of their residential location. The main economic constraints on residential relocation were those of disposable income, the availability of employment in different areas, and access to accommodation in different sectors of the housing market. Social, demographic and cultural characteristics, as well as knowledge of the city, also influenced residential location. Third, the process of residential differentiation was also influenced by the development of commercial and industrial areas within the city that imposed constraints on the nature of residential development. These constraints were exerted through pressure on land in certain districts, such as the invasion of inner-city housing areas by commercial development; through the provision of employment in particular areas with associated working-class housing close by; and through industrial pollution that prompted those who could do so to move away. Fourth, although land-use planning did not exist in the Victorian city and institutional forces were weaker than they are today, national and local governments affected residential development in several ways. Local by-laws, together with national health and housing legislation, imposed some control over new housing development, while town improvement schemes aimed at better water supply, sewage disposal, the closure of cellar dwellings and the demolition of slum properties affected existing housing. The rate at which new houses were built, and their tenure and form, were also constrained by private-sector factors such as the problem of landownership and the prevailing rate of return on investment. Finally, though based on objective standards, residential differentiation was perpetuated through popular images of different areas. Certain parts of the city could gain a reputation as being, say, of high status, unhealthy or predominantly Irish.23 The operation and outcomes of the processes of residential segregation in the Victorian city are apparent in Liverpool where, as in many nineteenth-century industrial cities, immigration was a major factor underlying urban change (Box 3.8). More generally, Pooley (1979)24 provides a model that summarises the processes of residential
Urban geography
66
sorting by social class in the nineteenth-century British city (Figure 3.6). Intra-urban residential mobility is characterised by three main features—distance, direction and frequency—which, in
Figure 3.6 The processes of residential sorting by class in the nineteenth-century British city, s.e.g. is socio-economic group Source: C.Pooley (1979) Residential mobility in the British city Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 4, 258–77 BOX 3.8 Socio-spatial segregation in nineteenth-century Liverpool By 1871 socio-spatial segregation was a feature of the urban landscape of Liverpool. It was based on three principal factors: (1) socio-economic class; (2) ethnicity (primarily Irish/non-Irish); and (3) stage in lifestyle. Though the result is a complex mix of sectors, zones and nuclei, a series of distinct elements can be identified:
The origins and growth of cities
67
1. The older central residential districts, approximately within the 1851 built-up area, had developed by 1871 into a number of distinct sectors largely constrained by the location of the docks, principal routes radiating from the centre, and surviving islands of highstatus property. 2. Outside the 1851 built-up area, broadly zonal characteristics are present: population from the central area had moved out into the newer suburbs, within which there were several areas of a transitional nature. Complementary to the mainly outward direction of ‘internal’ population movement, the central zones were largely fed by in-migrants, some of whom were to stay permanently in low-status areas, others of whom soon moved out to the newer suburbs. There was also considerable movement between sectors of low-status housing, often caused by displacement due to urban redevelopment, though non-Irish families generally avoided the Irish areas. 3. The high-status population moved sectorally into the third peripheral zone, while within the suburban ring, lateral movement took socially upward-moving families into the high-status sector to the north. Source: Adapted from R.Lawton and C.Pooley (1976) The Social Geography of Merseyside in the Nineteenth Century: Final Report to the Social Science Research Council London: SSRC combination, produce different patterns of movement within the city. These three main features are, in turn, influenced by the personal characteristics of the household (e.g. socio-economic group, or stage in the life cycle) and by general features of city structure (such as the extent to which distinct social and housing areas have developed). The outcome of these factors is seen in the production of social areas characterised by
Urban geography
68
different levels of residential mobility and community stability. The model identifies four types of area, together with their typical locations in the Victorian city: 1. Type A. An area that maintains long-term stability owing to low rates of mobility and the replacement of population loss by in-migrants of a similar character. This type occurred most frequently within high-status areas of the city. 2. Type B. An area that attains short-term stability through frequent short-distant mobility of a circulatory nature, but which over a longer period succumbs to a general centrifugal flow of population. This was the dominant form of mobility in the Victorian city. 3. Type C. An area where there are high rates of longer-distance mobility, as from central and industrial areas under pressure for further commercial use. Rapid community disintegration may take place, and such areas are essentially unstable in character, with a largely transient population often in the process of moving towards the urban periphery. Community disintegration may also occur in high-status areas that are under pressure from a lower-status population. As the high-status migrants leave, the area may become unstable, or alternatively develop as a new, lower-status community 4. Type D. An area of rapid in-migration on the urban periphery receiving large numbers of in-migrants from outside the city as well as from intra-urban population flows. Such areas are characterised by strong community formation and long-term stability. Although the precise form of mobility patterns is dependent on local urban context, the model provides a useful summary of the major causal forces, processes and outcomes of residential mobility in the Victorian city. It is clear that in general the nineteenth-century city formed a dynamic system in which frequent individual residential moves were an integral part of a ‘socio-spatial sorting mechanism’ that influenced the nature of the urban residential mosaic by reinforcing some communities and destroying others.25 HOUSING THE POOR It is important to recognise differences between England, Scotland, North America and continental Europe with regard to housing systems and consequent social patterns in industrial cities. In England, most working-class families rented accommodation from private landlords on weekly terms. Their houses were most likely to be all or part of twoor three-storey terraced houses, whether ‘through houses’ (with a back door and garden), ‘back-to-back’ or built around courtyards, perhaps sharing water supply and toilet facilities. In Scotland and continental Europe the working classes were more likely to live in tenements, managed by a ‘factor’ on behalf of an absentee landlord and let on yearly terms. In North America, although most poor families rented from private landlords, rates of home-ownership were higher, and there was little involvement of philanthropic bodies and less state intervention in housing provision.26 In the industrial towns of nineteenth-century Britain, neither town councils nor employers saw it as their responsibility to build housing for the immigrants. This task was generally left to speculative builders whose modus operandi was to maximise the use of land and
The origins and growth of cities
69
minimise expenditure on materials and services. This architectural parsimony reached an apogee in the terraces of back-to-back
Plate 3.3 Serried rows of nineteenthcentury red-brick working-class terraced housing run down the hillside to the now disused shipyards on the River Tyne in the Elswick district of Newcastle upon Tyne
BOX 3.9 The slum district of Little Ireland in Manchester, 1849 The district of Little Ireland was a typical living environment for 4,000 residents at the bottom of the social order. Engels described how the ‘coal-black, stagnant, stinking river’ Medlock loops through the area. The rows of back-to-back housing held an average of twenty persons per house, with its two rooms, attic and wet cellar. There was a single privy for six houses. Engels (1958 p. 71) presents a graphic description of the area: ‘the cottages are very small, old and dirty, while the streets are uneven, partly unpaved, not properly drained and full of ruts. Heaps of refuse, offal and sickening filth are everywhere interspersed with pools of stagnant liquid. The atmosphere is polluted by the stench and is darkened by the thick smoke of a dozen factory chimneys. A horde of ragged women and children swarm about the streets and they are just as dirty as the pigs which wallow happily on the heaps of garbage and in the pools of filth.’27 Source: Adapted from T.Freeman (1957) Pre-Famine Ireland Manchester: Manchester University Press
Urban geography
70
Figure 3.7 Layout of back-to-back housing in Manchester Source: E.Morris (1997) British Town Planning and Urban Design Harlow: Longman housing constructed from the 1830s onwards. These dwellings were built in double rows under a single roof, one side facing the street and the other a parallel back street or alley or a courtyard accessible from the street at intervals through narrow passages or ‘entries’ (Figure 3.7). At the ends of the street or in the corner of a courtyard a standpipe for water supply and a communal earth closet were provided for the use of about twenty houses, or upwards of 150 people. The density of such developments averaged sixty houses or 200 rooms per acre (150 houses or 500 rooms per hectare), and the overcrowding, poor sanitary arrangements, lack of sunlight and absence of through-ventilation in the houses made back-to-backs the despair of medical officers (Box 3.9). As late as 1913 an inquiry into housing conditions in part of Birmingham found that: some 200,000 people were housed in 43,366 dwellings of the back-toback type already long condemned as injurious to health because of lack of ventilation. For the most part they contained only three rooms, and so were overcrowded. In the six worst wards, from 51 per cent to 76 per cent were back-to-backs. Even more serious was the fact that 43,020 houses had no separate water supply, no sinks, no drains, and 58,028 no separate w.c., the closets being com-munal and exposed in courts. This meant that over a quarter of a million people lived in cav-ernous conditions. The real objection to back-toback houses lies not so much in their method of construction as in the degrading and disgusting conditions of their
The origins and growth of cities
71
outbuildings, which fre-quently made decency impossible and inevitably tended to undermine the health and morals of the tenants. (Bournville Village Trust 1941 p. 16)28 Even higher residential densities were created by the tenement form of building in working-class areas of nineteenth-century Glasgow (Box 3.10). THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN In marked contrast to the slum areas of the nineteenth-century industrial city were the status areas occupied by the elite. Many of Britain’s indus-trial cities were characterised by marked sociospatial differentiation between the upper-class west end and lower-class east end. The genesis of this pattern is illustrated by the westward migration of the upper middle classes in Glasgow which began in the mid-eighteenth century with the movement of the ‘tobacco lords’ away from the old city centre, and culminated in the classbased residential segregation of the Victorian city. The process was driven by two sets of factors. Major push factors were: 1. commercial encroachment into formerly highstatus residential areas adjacent to the central business district; 2. the deteriorating social and physical fabric of the old city centre. The dangers of crime and vice from slum areas were compounded by the threat of cholera, which, though originating in the slums, was no respecter of class. In addition to the push factors, the social elite of nineteenth-century Glasgow had a clearly defined set of criteria against which to judge a potential suburb. Most important was the social composition of the neighbourhood, which had to be exclusively upper class. In Glasgow’s emerging west end this was ensured by: BOX 3.10 Living conditions in the tenement slums of mid-nineteenth-century Glasgow The westward migration of the wealthy from the old town not only introduced sociospatial polarisation into what had been in the eighteenth century a heterogeneous urban structure, but freed land and housing for other uses. Those parts of the old city abandoned by the elite were colonised by a working-class population that was burgeoning in response to the new industries’ demand for labour. Residences previously occupied by a single wealthy family were ‘made down’ to accommodate large numbers of the poor in grossly crowded conditions, characterised most graphically by the wynds and vennels around Glasgow Cross. The end result of decades of making down in such places was addresses such as ‘Bridgegate, No. 29, back land, stair first left, three up, right lobby, door facing’. In 1861 two-thirds of Glasgow’s population of 394,864 lived in houses with only one or two rooms and of these 60 per cent shared a room with at least four others
Urban geography
72
Overcrowding was intensified by property speculators building on any available open space to produce ‘backjams’. and ‘backlands’ tenements, which were either added to existing buildings or erected in the erstwhile gardens of the formerly wealthy burgher residences. By the mid-nineteenth century the old city was a congeries of poor-quality housing. One street in a dark ravine of a close housed a husband, wife and two children in a ‘sort of hole in the wall’ measuring six shoe-lengths in breadth, between eight and nine in length from the bed to the fireplace, and of a height that made it difficult to stand upright. Densities of 1,000 persons per acre were commonplace. A notorious example was the rookery in the Drygate, where in a single close 500 people claimed a dwelling. Source: M.Pacione (1995) Glasgow: The Socio-Spatial Development of the City Chichester: Wiley 1. an informal land-use zoning consensus among owners to reserve the area for highquality housing despite the presence of exploitable deposits of coal, iron, brick clay, building sand and freestone; 2. restricted clauses in feu charters, leaseholds and freeholds of houses which laid down what activities were permitted, as well as details of the design of houses, provision of footpaths, type of gas lamps and sewers, and even the nature of the shrubbery. Later feu contracts also often specified a minimum market price for a given house—the whole providing an early example of ‘exclusionary zoning’. The middle classes were also attracted by the picturesque ‘healthful and well aired’ environment of the west end with its rolling drumlin topography, prevailing westerly winds, and location above and to the west of the industrial areas and insalubrious old town. A further attraction was the proximity of the west end to the central business district, where the majority of Glasgow’s leading citizens were engaged.29 As well as spatial or territorial social segregation, in cities such as Glasgow, where ‘high-rise’ tenement building was the norm, vertical segregation was also prevalent. Within the tenement the principal apartments were always on the first floor, away from the noise, smell and dirt of the street but not too far to climb (Box 3.11). The industrial city first developed in Britain, the cradle of the industrial revolution, but soon spread to Europe and North America. THE ORIGINS OF URBAN USA Despite the existence of a Neolithic urban hearth in Mesoamerica, there were no preColumbian settlements in the territory of the future USA that could be considered of urban status. The urban origins of the USA are related unequivocally to the process of colonisation by Spanish, French and especially English settlers. The earliest urban settlements were established during Spanish occupation of the South West in what are now the states of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California. This process also extended north from the Caribbean into Florida. Reps (1965)30 has identified St Augustine in Florida, founded in 1565, as the first American city. As in other early Spanish settlements, this combined the functions of (1) military post
The origins and growth of cities
73
(presidio), (2) base for trade and farming (pueblo), and (3) religious centre (mission). On the west coast, in California, the Spanish mission settlements formed the pre-urban nuclei for many of the great modern cities from San Diego to San Francisco de Solano.31 Nevertheless, despite the early beginnings, by the mid-nineteenth century there were no urban settlements in the South-West of comparable size to those of the East and rapidly emerging Midwest. English colonisation of North America began in 1585 with several unsuccessful attempts by Crown-appointed adventurers to establish a settlement on Roanoke Island in North Carolina. During the seventeenth century the colonial effort passed to corporate enterprises in the shape of royal chartered joint-stock companies. In 1607 the Virginia Company of London founded Jamestown, which became a centre for the tobacco plantations and which by 1619 had attained a population of around 1,000. Reps (1965)32 has divided these early British settlements into four groups: 1. the earliest tidewater colonies of Virginia and Maryland, including Jamestown and Baltimore; 2. the new towns of New England, the largest of which was Boston; 3. the towns of the middle colonies, dominated by New York and Philadelphia (Box 3.12); 4. the colonial towns of Carolina and Georgia such as Charlestown and Savannah. Also in the seventeenth century the Dutch established Fort Orange (Albany) in 1624 and New Amsterdam (New York) two years later as their main trading posts. Farther north the French were active, founding Quebec in 1608 and Montreal in 1620, giving them effective control of the St Lawrence river valley. By the end of the seventeenth century, however, English colonisation was dominant, although settlement was still largely confined to a 50-mile (80 km) fringe of country inland from navigable waterways. In 1800, of a US population of 4 million, only some 170,000 were settled west of the Allegheny Mountains. The nineteenth century saw a shift in the population centre of gravity as the urban frontier moved westward (Box 3.13). THE WESTWARD PROGRESS OF URBANISM A major obstacle to westward settlement was the difficult transportation links back to the main markets of the eastern seaboard. The importance of developments in transport technology for the expansion of urbanism is illustrated by the impact BOX 3.11 Tenement life in Glasgow The tenements of Glasgow have provided accommodation for millions of citizens over the past 150 years. The quality of this form of housing varied across the city, and was signalled by the character of the front entrance. In working-class tenements the entrance to the close (the passage leading to the stairs) was a simple opening in the wall. In betterclass tenements the close entrance might be decorated to match the windows on the floor
Urban geography
74
above, or might be adorned by a porch reached by a flight of steps from street level. The close was the communal part of the tenement, and in working-class communities was a place of social interaction where neighbours met as they entered or departed from the building or took their turn to sweep the close or wash the stairs. At the rear of the tenement was the back court. This enclosed space, or drying area, was the common property of everyone living in the tenement. It sometimes contained a communal wash-house with a cast iron boiler heated by a coal fire, which was available to residents on a rota basis. Strict adherence to the rota was required for a peaceful existence! One could not change one’s wash day to suit circumstances, and the whereabouts of the indispensable item, the washroom key, was a frequent source of friction. The back court also accommodated the ash pits, which replaced the dung heap of earlier generations. Space in the back court was also taken up by the brick w.c. stack, affixed to the back wall of the tenement, and housing a single toilet for communal use on each half-landing. These toilet stacks replaced the dry closet or privy in the back court which served the whole tenement until the Police Act of 1892 made internal sanitation compulsory. As far as the internal structure of the building is concerned, the prime characteristic of the tenement as a building form was its flexibility. An ingenious architect could provide a reasonable variety of different house sizes and plans within the same solid rectangular framework. The four-storey Victorian tenement could contain five large houses of six or more rooms or, on a building plot of the same size, to meet totally different requirements, twenty-five single-apartment houses. The diagram illustrates the layout of a west-end tenement at the higher end of the market (with two flats of four or five main rooms on the upper floor). At the other
end of the social scale were one-room and two-room apartments, commonly known as ‘a single end’ and a ‘roorn and kitchen’ respectively. In the diagram a ‘single end’ is grouped between two two-room flats, and this 2:1:2 formation was probably the most common tenement type in Glasgow In the ‘room and kitchen’ arrangement the room or
The origins and growth of cities
75
parlour faced the street, as in the better-class tenements. A bed closet was provided on the wall opposite the window, the built-in bed hidden from view behind a door until the practice was forbidden by the Glasgow Buildings Regulation Act of 1900. The parlour would be furnished to the extent of the occupants’ means, and, perhaps surprisingly in view of the cramped size of the flat, was often kept for best and used only ‘for visitors’ or for special occasions such as a wedding or funeral. The family lived and slept in the kitchen at the rear. In the kitchen the open bed recess contained a built-in bed about 2 ft 6 in. (75 cm) above the floor, below which could be stored a smaller bed that could be wheeled out at night for the children. Toilet facilities were provided by a communal w.c. on the half-landing of the stair. It is salutary to note that at the outbreak of the First World War the great majority of Glasgow families lived in one- or two-room flats, and that as late as 1951 this form of accommodation made up half the city’s housing stock. Source: M.Pacione (1995) Glasgow: The Socio-Spatial Development of the City Chichester: Wiley BOX 3.12 Philadelphia: a seventeenth-century planned town
In 1681 William Penn (1644–1718) was granted a charter from Charles II establishing him as governor and proprietor of Pennsylvania (in return for cancellation of a £16,000 royal debt owed to Penn’s father). Penn appointed three commissioners to lead the first group of settlers and provided them with a detailed brief for the location and planning of a new town. The gridiron plan served the immediate purpose of quickly dividing up the urban land into equal-size plots to be allocated to settlers by lottery. The layout also reflected Penn’s experience of the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London, and his determination to create a healthy and safe urban environment. Two main avenues 100ft (30m) in width crossed in a central square of 10 acres (4 ha), with minor squares of 8 acres (3 ha) in each quarter of the city. The central square would accommodate a number of public buildings. Penn also instructed that space should be allocated to allow every house to be located in the centre of the plot if the owner desired thereby providing recreation space and
Urban geography
76
reducing the fire hazard. After three years Philadelphia had 600 houses, which increased to 2,000 by 1700. Although Penn had envisaged a dispersed pattern of growth between the two rivers, the dominance of the Delaware as a trade route meant that the city expanded outwards from the port area. Not until well into the nineteenth century did the city reach the area of the central square designated in the master plan, a new city hall being completed there in 1890. Subsequently, in the twentieth century, the migration of the central business district (downtown) away from the waterfront led to the gradual decay of the old port area and earliest residential districts, providing opportunities for redevelopment. of the construction of the Erie Canal between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. When the canal reached the obscure village of Buffalo in 1824 the decimation of freight costs over the 363 miles to the Hudson River led to the construction of 3,400 houses in the following year, with the town reaching a population of 18,000 by 1840. Other settlements on the new waterway such as Rochester, Utica, Syracuse and, principally, New York all grew rapidly into prosperous cities (Box 3.14). Borchert (1967)33 has proposed a model of US urban development related to changes in technology. STAGE 1: THE SAILING VESSEL AND HORSE-DRAWN WAGON ERA TO 1830 Throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the North American economy was based almost entirely on agriculture and the export of staple products. The main function of the few cities that existed was mercantile, involving the import of manufactured goods from Europe and export of primary produce. The largest cities were on the Atlantic seaboard, with New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Baltimore dominating the trade of the original colonies. The next largest cities were located on the riverine routes into the interior at New Orleans, Quebec and Montreal. Most of the cities beyond the Appalachians were small service centres for surrounding agricultural settlements, the largest in 1830 being Cincinatti with 24,800 inhabitants. STAGE 2: THE AGE OF STEAM AND THE IRON RAIL, 1830–70 The proportion of the US population living in urban areas rose from 8 per cent to 23 per cent over the period 1830–70. In addition to the continued growth of the cities of the eastern seaboard, which had developed as manufacturing bases and key centres for the commercial exploitation of the developing continent, the most dramatic trend was the spread of urbanism in the Midwest associated with the construction of canals and railways. The rail network expanded from 9,000 miles of track in 1850 to 53,000 miles by 1870 and, as well as linking all the east-coast cities, had reached Oakland on the west coast. Inland cities in accessible locations boomed. Chicago on Lake Michigan, with waterway links to the east and the Great Lakes and Erie Canal, grew into a city of 300,000 people by 1870. The only large cities beyond the east coast and the Midwest were New Orleans (population 191,000), with a rich agricultural hinterland, and San
The origins and growth of cities
77
Francisco (population 150,000), which developed rapidly following the gold rush of 1849. BOX 3.13 The township and range system of land division
The westward expansion of settlement in the USA was based on a national land policy enshrined in the Land Ordinance of 1785. The law required that the territory to be sold should be laid out in regular sections or townships 6 miles square. Each township was divided into thirty-six square sections of one square mile or 640 acres (260ha). Half the land was to be sold as townships, the other half as sections. Section 16 in each township was reserved for the support of schools. The first seven ranges of townships were surveyed by 1786 immediately west of the Ohio river (numbered 1–7 from east to west). An example township in the seventh range is shown divided into its thirty-six sections. Each section could also be divided into quarter-sections. Section boundaries often provided lines for roads, and villages and towns grew up at junctions or were laid out and promoted by property speculators. STAGE 3: THE AGE OF STEAM AND STEEL, 1870–1920 Over the period 1870–1920, the urban population of the USA experienced a fivefold increase to 41 million, and urban development was evident across the continent. On the east coast the New York metropolitan area had quadrupled in population to 5.3 million by 1920, while Philadelphia tripled to reach 1.8 million. In the Midwest, Chicago moved from being the fifth-largest city in North America to being the second largest and experienced a ninefold increase in population to 2.7 million. On the west coast a growing number of cities had populations in excess of 100,000, including Los Angeles. By contrast, in the South, urban development was still at an incipient stage. The continental urbanisation wave was driven by several forces, including: 1. the increasing integration of the North Ameri-
Urban geography
78
BOX 3.14 New York: the urban explosion In contrast to Philadelphia, New York began
without a master plan, and only after 150 years of organic growth was the first gridiron laid out. When the British captured the city in 1664 the population was around 1,500. Following the opening of the Erie Canal, the city’s population mushroomed from 150,000 in 1820 to 300,000 in 1840, 515,000 in 1851 and 942,000 by 1870. To accommodate expansion, city commissioners were authorised to lay out a gridiron on the undeveloped part of Manhattan Island. As the map shows, the plan of 1811 imposed a uniform grid based on twelve 100ft (30m) wide north-south avenues and 155 east-west streets, 60ft (18m) in width. The southern start line of the commissioners’ plan is clearly seen against the earlier, randomly aligned grids. By 1850 the infilling of the grid had reached Forty-Second Street without any provision for major public open space. In 1858 the culmination of a fourteen-year campaign led to the appointment of Olmsted and Vaux to design Central Park. By 1898 the current five-borough city of New York was constituted with the addition of Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten Island to Manhattan. The expansion of New York was facilitated also by advances in structural engineering that allowed the Hudson and East Rivers to be bridged and tunnelled under, and that underlay the construction of skyscrapers and high-speed elevators. New York is today a ‘world city’ and one of the command centres of the global economy.
The origins and growth of cities
79
can transport system due to the standardisation of rail gauges and increase in transcontinental lines; 2. the influx of large numbers of poor immigrants, which provided a continuous supply of low-cost labour; 3. the introduction of the assembly-line factory system, exemplified by the ‘Fordist’ production system of the Detroit automobile industry, which spread rapidly to all types of manufacturing; 4. the large surpluses being produced by a mechanised agricultural system; 5. the entrepreneurial activity of family-owned corporations. Pittsburgh, for example, became the base of the Carnegie Iron and Steel Corporation, which in 1901 merged with other producers to become US Steel. Consequently, by the early decades of the twentieth century the basic alignment of the North American urban system had been established. STAGE 4: THE AGE OF THE AUTOMOBILE AND AIR TRAVEL, 1920–70 Over the period 1920–70 the proportion of the US population living in urban places of 5,000 or more people increased from 47 per cent to 70 per cent. In geographical terms the major changes in the distribution of the urban population were:
TABLE 3.1 THE FASTEST-GROWING US CITIES AND BIGGEST POPULATION LOSERS, 1980–90 The fastest-growing City
1980
The big population losers 1990
% City change
1980
1990
% change
1. Moreno Valley 28,309 CA
118,779 319.6
1. Gary IN
151,968
116,646
−23.2
2. Rancho Cucamonga CA
55,250
101,409 83.5
2. Newark NJ 329,248
275,221
−16.4
3. Piano TX
72,331
128,713 77.9
3. Detroit MI 1,203,369 1,027,974 −14.6
4. Irvine CA
62,134
110,330 77.6
4. Pittsburgh PA
423,960
369,879
−12.8
5. MesaAZ
163,594 288,091 76.1
5. St Louis MD
452,804
396,879
−12.4
6. Oceanside CA
76,698
6. Cleveland OH
573,822
505,616
−11.9
128,398 67.4
Source: adapted from E.Phillips (1996) City Lights New York: Oxford University Press
1. the emergence of super-metropolitan and megalopolitan urban areas;
Urban geography
80
2. the spread of metropolitan urban development across most of the continent; 3. the growth of urban areas beyond the old central cities. These spatial trends were facilitated by transport developments, including the widespread use of the automobile and construction of the interstate highway system. The highest rates of urban growth occurred in the sunbelt, with slower growth and in some cases negative growth in the older cities of the North-East (Table 3.1). Between 1940 and 1980 Phoenix grew by 1,107 per cent and Albuquerque by 836 per cent. The phenomenal growth rates of the sunbelt cities were related to the exploitation of petrochemicals and the growth of the microelectronics, computer and aerospace industries. The new industries’ need for a smaller but highly trained and educated workforce freed them from the need to locate close to a large pool of factory labour and laid greater emphasis on other factors, including markets, prevailing wage and tax rates, and a benign climate. Other key factors in the expansion of sunbelt cities included: 1. the growth of federal military expenditure; 2. the migration of large numbers of retirees, often on government pensions, drawn by a warm climate and low cost of living; 3. an improved standard of living and changing lifestyle resulting in more leisure time; 4. the entrepreneurialism and civic boosterism of the political and economic leadership of sunbelt cities, which attracted inward investment.34 In terms of morphology, the cities of the sunbelt exhibit a distinctive character: shaped by the automobile, they have no need for a dominant downtown area but sprawl over the landscape in a low-density form of development encapsulated in the phenomenon of the edge city. STAGE 5: THE AGE OF DECONCENTRATION, 1970 TO THE PRESENT The continuation and extension of these trends to other regions during the latter part of the century allows us to add a fifth stage to Borcherfs (1967) model. This is characterised by a decrease in the size of the larger metropolitan areas, a decline in the density of the urban population, and increasing segregation of people in communities according to socio-economic factors such as class, race, age or language. The counterurbanisation trend is driven by industrial decentralisation, the insecurity and discomfort of metropolitan life as perceived by those able to exercise a choice, a search for amenities and retirement loci, and improved transportation and communications networks which enable people to enjoy an urban lifestyle without being permanently resident in a large metropolitan area. These characteristics are exhibited most clearly in the concept of the post-industrial city. POST-INDUSTRIAL URBANISM Post-industrialism is a social process that has had a major impact on the city. Its principal characteristics are:
The origins and growth of cities
81
1. changes in the economy leading to a focus on the service sector rather than on manufacturing; 2. changes in the social structure that afford greater power and status to professional and technological workers; 3. changes in the knowledge base, with greater emphasis on R&D; 4. greater concern for the impact of technological change; 5. the advent of advanced information systems and intellectual technology. According to Bell (1973) the industrial post-industrial watershed was reached in 1956 in the USA when, for the first time in the history of industrial civilisation, the number of white-collar workers exceded the number of blue-collar workers.35 For Bell (1973) the advent of post-industrial societies meant fundamental changes in the nature of economic organisation and social relations. The resultant post-industrial city is characterised by: 1. an employment profile that reflects the twin processes of deindustrialisation and tertiarisation (see Chapter 14) as part of a restructuring of the economic base from a Fordist mode of industrial production to more flexible (post-Fordist) production systems (e.g. high-tech knowledge-based industries); 2. greater integration into the global economic system; 3. restructuring of urban form; 4. emerging problems of increasing income inequality, social and spatial segregation, privatisation of urban space and growth of defensible spaces. Post-industrial urbanism is characterised by fragmentation of urban form and its associated economic and social geographies.36 For some commentators this socio-spatial fragmentation heralds the advent of the postmodern city,37 and is evident in the ‘quartering’ of urban space. THE QUARTERING OF URBAN SPACE It is possible to identify a number of increasingly separate ‘residential cities’. Each has its source in a parallel, (although not always congruent), ‘city of business and work’. The five principal formations of parallel residential and business cities are: (1) the luxury city and the controlling city, (2) the gentrified city and the city of advanced services, (3) the suburban city and the city of direct production, (4) the tenement city and the city of unskilled work, (5) the abandoned city and the residual city. 1. The luxury areas of the city, while located in clearly defined residential districts, are not tied to any quarter. For the wealthy the city is less important as a residential location than as a location of power and profit. If they reside in the city, it is in a world largely insulated from contact with non-members of their class. The controlling city tends to be located in the high-rise centres of advanced services. The controlling city parallels the luxury areas of the residential city in many ways but not necessarily in physical proximity. The luxury city and the controlling city come together in space in the citadel where those at the top of the economic hierarchy live, work, consume and recreate in protected spaces.
Urban geography
82
2. The gentrified city serves professionals, managers and ‘yuppies’ who may be doing well for themselves, yet work for others. Their residential areas ar
